


And With Your Hands, Your Hearts

by Srin



Series: Let lips do what hands do [2]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Backstory, Dealing With Guilt, Falling In Love, Feelings, M/M, Pining, Road Trips, Stopped-being-enemies-yesterday to lovers, references to violence and deaths of OCs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27464023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Srin/pseuds/Srin
Summary: “You are too kind,” Nicolò says, and it does not sound like polite acquiescence. It sounds like defeat, but not the defeat of a vanquished enemy. No, not defeat. It sounds like the recognition of something too great, too profound to be denied, like the movement of the sun or the breaking of a wave. Which is madness. He says it as though Yusuf’s willingness to release him from his obvious discomfort is some magnificent act of mercy when in truth Yusuf simply cannot stand to see him distraught._After leaving Jerusalem, Nicolò and Yusuf roam the countryside trading stories, attempting to work out what is edible, dealing with their respective pasts and collective future, and falling in love, not necessarily in that order.This is a sequel to 'Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand', but there is enough of a recap at the beginning that you can dive right in here if you prefer.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Let lips do what hands do [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2006677
Comments: 33
Kudos: 253





	And With Your Hands, Your Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> General content notes: None of it happens on-screen and it is not very detailed, but there is discussion of the slaughter of civilians during the siege of Jerusalem. There are also references to homophobia, homophobic violence, and other violence, all between OCs. Discussion of past Nicolò/OCs and Yusuf/OCs. Andy/Quynh implied via dream, they don’t actually appear. Some less than respectful commentary on the Christian church’s attitudes towards sex in this period. 
> 
> History and geography: I am very much not an expert on either this period or the landscapes of the relevant region, so this is almost certainly not completely historically or geographically accurate, but I’ve tried to avoid anything too jarringly implausible. Please do not attempt to eat random wild plants, in the Levant or elsewhere, unless you actually know what you’re doing!
> 
> Language things: Most of the places mentioned would have slightly or significantly different names in the languages Yusuf and Nicolò are talking and thinking in, but I’ve stuck to the English names for the sake of simplicity and accessibility. Ragusa is what is now known as Dubrovnik. I’ve used the name ‘Tamazight’ for Yusuf’s other native language; my research suggested that there is probably another name for the specific variety Yusuf speaks, and that the preferred English term for the language family as a whole is Amazigh, but that Tamazight has a long history as the term speakers of these languages themselves use for their language, so it seemed like a reasonable compromise. But I’m happy to be corrected if someone who knows more about it than I do disagrees!
> 
> The poem Yusuf recites to Nicolò is by Abu Nawas; I couldn’t find who to credit for this translation.

* * *

A village near Jerusalem, 11 July 1099

* * *

About a month ago, Yusuf and Nicolò both died in battle outside the walls of Jerusalem. The long-term consequences of this were not exactly as they might have envisioned.

A few days ago, Yusuf and Nicolò were still involved in the siege, still killing one another whenever the opportunity presented itself. At this point it was more out of momentum and a lack of better ideas than any real conviction that it would make any difference; they were both exhausted, despairing, alone among their respective comrades, lost.

Yesterday afternoon, when they met in the field near the end of the day’s fighting, Nicolò put down his sword and surrendered himself to Yusuf. Yusuf put down his own sword too, and they began to talk. When one of Yusuf’s comrades happened upon them and mistook the water skin Yusuf had given to Nicolò for a sign of treachery, Yusuf decided to leave rather than attempt to return to things as they were before. He and Nicolò left the battlefield together, taking refuge for the night in one of the abandoned villages near the city. Yesterday evening, Nicolò held Yusuf’s hand, and Yusuf remembered what it was to feel happiness.

Today, they are sitting together by the village well, discussing what to do next. They are using Latin because they can both speak it. More or less.

They have no money and little in the way of equipment or provisions, so Yusuf has proposed returning to Acre, the city he was visiting on behalf of the family business before he decided to go defend Jerusalem from the invaders, and where he knows some other merchants who might be persuaded to grant him enough credit to outfit them both for whatever comes next. By the most direct route, the journey from Jerusalem to Acre would take less than a week on foot, but they are not exactly in a position to travel either quickly or directly.

“Acre is to the north, yes?” Nicolò says.

“Yes,” Yusuf agrees. “On the coast.”

“You know the way?” Nicolò asks, though it is not really a question; he clearly fully expects the answer to be yes. If he is honest with himself, Yusuf has been rather enjoying the admiring way Nicolò looks at him when he speaks with familiarity of places Nicolò has barely heard of, his easy confidence that the map in Yusuf’s mind is both complete and accurate. Unfortunately, nearly all of Yusuf’s travels have been by sea, and a boat is one of many things they do not currently have.

“Er. Well. Not exactly,” Yusuf admits. “We came by ship from Acre to Jaffa, before your lot arrived. I know the way to Jaffa, and from there we could simply follow the coast, but…”

“That would require going to Jaffa.” Which is now controlled by the invaders, whom Nicolò has deserted and who are not exactly likely to grant untroubled passage to Yusuf either.

“Yes. I think there is an inland road from Jerusalem to Arsuf, on the coast to the north of Jaffa, but I have never travelled it. You will have seen more of the interior of this country than I have, in fact.”

“We did travel by land, but…” Nicolò shakes his head, gives a small smile with a bitter tinge to it. “I am afraid I merely went where I was lead, then.”

“Never mind,” Yusuf says. “We are not in a hurry, are we?”

“No,” Nicolò agrees. “We have time.”

It is, Yusuf thinks, probably best to avoid the main arteries of travel anyway. Anyone who encountered the Franks on their way to Jerusalem is unlikely to look kindly on Nicolò; even without the sword and mail coat he left behind on the battlefield, his incomprehension of the local languages makes it obvious that he is not a native, and these days no one is much inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to strangers, especially not pale ones in shabby bloodstained clothes. And while Yusuf, as a foreign volunteer, was never technically part of the Fatimid army and is therefore not technically a deserter now, he is not confident that that distinction will carry much weight while he is walking around in a soldier’s garb with a sword on his hip. Better to keep a low profile until they can both make themselves a little less conspicuous.

* * *

Last night Yusuf and Nicolò already searched the village and scavenged what few scraps of food the residents had not taken with them when they fled to the safety of Jerusalem, so there is nothing to be had for breakfast. They fill their water skin from the well, make a bundle of the battlefield equipment they have that there is no reason to sweat under now – Yusuf’s helmet and armour, both of their padded coats – and set out in a broadly north-western direction.

After a while they come across a grove of olive trees, all heavy with fruit. Yusuf eyes the trees speculatively. Nicolò catches his gaze and shakes his head.

“Not worth it,” Nicolò says.

“I know they are not normally eaten raw, but…”

“Have you ever tried an uncured olive?” Nicolò asks him.

“I cannot say I have.”

“I have, exactly once,” Nicolò says. “My friend stole a handful of raw olives from a farmer’s stall and wagered I could not finish them. I took that wager, and I did not win it.”

“What was the forfeit?” Yusuf asks.

Nicolò starts to answer but stops himself, with a look on his face that Yusuf cannot quite identify. There is fondness in it, and a little sadness, as for a pleasant memory of something now lost, but there is something else too, something less sweet. Not embarrassment exactly, not shame either – Yusuf knows well already how Nicolò wears his shame, from every time his role as one of the invaders has come up. Whatever it is, he clearly does not want to explain. Something too intimate to share, perhaps, or something he is comfortable with himself but thinks Yusuf will not like? 

“I do not remember,” Nicolò says, obviously lying, and though Yusuf is now far more curious than he was when he first asked, he does not press the matter. They have only just stopped being mortal enemies; this is not the time to pry into personal matters. They walk on.

* * *

They walk for most of the rest of the day, until they are too tired and hungry to continue. Well. That is not precisely accurate.

Nicolò, like the rest of the invaders, has been struggling with hunger and thirst for weeks, and had ample experience of famine in Antioch prior to that, so he is accustomed to getting on with things despite an empty stomach. Yusuf is used to fasting during the day for Ramadan, but not to doing it without a proper meal before sunrise and again after sunset. Though the food in the city during the siege was not exactly a feast, he never had to go to bed with his hunger unsatisfied. Now, he has not had a decent meal since yesterday’s breakfast back in Jerusalem, before the battle and all the walking that followed. Yusuf does not like to admit it, but he is struggling, stomach clenching and head aching.

He does not complain aloud; it would help nothing and he feels weak for it when Nicolò has probably not eaten properly in far longer. But Nicolò keeps looking at him, gaze soft and concerned, and Yusuf does not have the strength to put on a convincing show of being fine either. Eventually Nicolò stops and says,

“Yusuf, we are both tired. We should rest now.”

Yusuf agrees readily, grateful for the respite and touched by Nicolò’s way of suggesting it, as if it is as much for his own sake as for Yusuf’s.

The next day they find another village, this one still occupied. Yusuf enters it alone, leaving his sword with Nicolò, and manages to persuade some of the wary villagers to take his helmet and armour in exchange for another water skin and several days’ worth of food. The equipment would be worth considerably more in a city; these people do not really have any use for it and he is fairly sure they only agree to the trade at all because they hear his stomach growl and feel sorry for him. But he and Nicolò need to eat, now. Nicolò has confirmed that the strange force that heals their wounds does not extend to filling their stomachs, and Yusuf is not at all eager to find out what starving to death feels like, even if it is only temporary.

* * *

They stretch the food from the village as far as they can, but it is clear from the start that they will not make it to Acre on that alone.

Yusuf has heard and read many romantic tales of travellers roaming the rural idylls, subsisting happily on the uncultivated bounty of nature. As it turns out, this is somewhat more difficult when the rural idylls in question are located in a land neither of the travellers is native to. And to make matters worse, both travellers are city-dwellers, more accustomed to seeking out a bargain at a market than working out which bits of the uncultivated bounty of nature are edible.

“You cannot have brought enough supplies all the way from Antioch, your lot must have foraged for food too,” Yusuf says reasonably. They have come to a lightly wooded area, with various … green … things growing in the open spaces amongst the trees.

“There were people among us who had some idea of what they were looking for,” Nicolò says. “When I went with them it was only to keep watch.”

“You must have seen what they collected?”

“They collected plants,” Nicolò says with a helpless shrug. “I did not anticipate needing to remember which ones.”

Nevertheless, he bends down, squints at something with long jagged leaves and pale blue flowers.

“This might be chicory?” he says.

“Is that good?” Yusuf asks. He has no idea what ‘chicory’ is. He learned Latin in order to read Roman literature and most of those texts were more concerned with topics like history, philosophy, and social commentary than botany or food, so this is one area where his vocabulary is rather limited. The only thing he remembers of the Roman recipe book he skimmed once is that it involved a lot of fish sauce and strange meats.

“I like it better after cooking, less –” Nicolò stops, struggling for a word, shakes his head. “Never mind. You can eat it raw too.”

He plucks a leaf from the plant, takes a bite, chews for a moment, and then nods.

“Yes, I am fairly sure it is chicory,” Nicolò says.

Yusuf plucks his own leaf, samples it, and makes a face.

“I think the word you were searching for is ‘bitter’,” Yusuf tells him.

“’Bitter’,” Nicolò repeats thoughtfully. “Yes, that was it. Sorry. Not nearly as bitter as the raw olives, though.”

“Never mind. Better than starving,” Yusuf says, and kneels to gather more of the leaves. “Do you recognise anything else?”

Nicolò pokes around in the greenery a bit more, and makes a pleasantly surprised sound on spotting something with tall stalks and fine feathery leaves. He tries it and nods to himself.

“I cannot remember the Latin name for this one, but it is not bitter.” He holds some out to Yusuf and Yusuf reaches for it, their fingers brushing. Yusuf lets his hand linger, thumb tracing over the joints of Nicolò’s fingers, before he takes hold of the leaves. Nicolò turns his hand, sweeping his fingers over the back of Yusuf’s hand before returning to the plant. They have been sharing touches like this often since that first night in the village, and Yusuf has long since abandoned any shyness over indulging in it. They both spent too long, between their first deaths and their truce, starved of any human connection beyond the violence they did to one another. There is no reason to deny themselves these small comforts now.

Yusuf tastes the new offering and finds it rather more agreeable than the chicory. Familiar, too. He thinks for a moment, trying to remember the Latin name.

“I think I know this one. Fennel?”

“Oh! Yes, fennel,” Nicolò agrees.

He keeps searching, and eventually manages to pick out a couple of other things that he is reasonably sure he has eaten before. The salad they end up with is not exactly a culinary masterpiece, but Yusuf finds that he does not really mind. With Nicolò at his side, even the bitter chicory seems better than any of the meals he can remember eating during those agonizing weeks of isolation and despair in Jerusalem.

* * *

They quickly settle into a routine of sorts. They do most of their travelling in the cooler hours of the morning, aiming vaguely northwest but making more of an effort to avoid people and difficult geography, and to find spots that look likely to offer food and water, than to stick to any real route. When the sun approaches its peak, they seek out shade and nap or talk, waiting out the worst of the afternoon heat. Once it gets a bit cooler again, they scavenge for provisions. Having nothing left to offer in trade or payment other than Yusuf’s sword, which he wants to save for barter in Acre in case the merchants prove less generous than he hopes, they try to stay away from anything that seems to belong to anyone. Every once in a while, though, they do have to resort to using a village well at night, or guiltily stealing a little produce from an orchard or field.

Because they have no way of knowing what is held in common and what is not, Nicolò is always careful to pick small amounts from different trees or parts of the field so as not to concentrate the loss in any one spot. Yusuf knows by now that Nicolò is not at his core a cruel or callous man, that he joined the invaders not because he did not care about causing suffering to the innocent people they attacked but because he had been convinced that such violence against the inhuman other was necessary for the good of his Christian fellows. Yusuf knows Nicolò now regrets that profoundly, but it is still a little startling to see just how gentle and considerate the man who killed Yusuf repeatedly can be when he does not believe violence to be required of him.

They rarely find enough food to make a really satisfying meal, which is another reason for the afternoon malaise. Yusuf remembers times in his youth when he would get so caught up in his books that he stayed awake all night reading, fighting off tiredness by eating whatever was at hand and getting told off in the morning for overindulging in both the food and the lamp oil. They do the opposite now, compensating for the scarcity of food with long hours spent idle. 

For conversation, Latin serves them well, for the most part, though they do face certain limitations. Nicolò’s knowledge of the language is derived entirely from his church, so words and phrases that are familiar from his prayers or their holy book come easily, but he can struggle with vocabulary that is uncommon in his scriptures. Yusuf is less often at a loss for words, but occasionally runs into difficulties with pronunciation; when he was reading old texts it never really mattered which vowels were long or where the stress should be, so at times they get stuck on a word that they both turn out to know, but say differently enough to hinder immediate recognition. There are other gaps in understanding too. 

“Do you know any languages other than Genoese and Latin?” Yusuf asks Nicolò one afternoon, while they are lounging beneath a tree. Nicolò shakes his head.

“Not really. I might recognise a few words in Greek if I heard them, but I cannot think how to say anything useful. I understand Florentine well enough, and I have a few words of Frankish, but that is all.”

“A few words of Frankish,” Yusuf repeats, baffled. He is well aware that the Franks speak many different languages, Latin and Nicolò’s Genoese among them, but how on earth can Nicolò, a Frank, know only a few words of ‘Frankish’?

“Yes?” Nicolò says, equally confused about what could be so confusing. “Most of those who came here are Franks, there were only a few of us from Genoa and elsewhere. We had people who normally translated for us, but I picked up the odd phrase. ‘Thank you’, ‘attack now’, ‘piss over there’, that sort of thing. And some of the more interesting profanities.”

“ _Most_ of them are Franks?” Yusuf repeats, still too bewildered to take the opportunity to criticise the invaders’ appalling hygiene or follow up on those more interesting profanities.

Nicolò stares at him as though he has grown a second head, until finally Yusuf remembers that the way the men of Acre and Jerusalem use the word ‘Frank’ is not the way the Franks themselves use it. Only one particular group of them, a group to which Nicolò does not belong, actually call themselves Franks, and it is their language to which he was referring.

Not that Nicolò is any better when it comes to the distinctions amongst what he calls Yusuf’s people, who are mostly no such thing. He is dimly aware that the lands the invaders passed through are not a political monolith, but as soon as Yusuf mentions Fatimids or Seljuks he might as well be speaking Arabic. Or Tamazight. Nicolò also seems to be under the impression that all Muslims are more or less the same, culturally if not politically, and is surprised to learn that the Arabic Yusuf speaks here is not the same as the Arabic he reads in the Qur’an, or the Arabic he speaks in Tunis, and it is certainly not the same as the entirely different language he and many others also speak in Tunis. 

“How many different languages do you speak, then?” Nicolò asks him, and Yusuf shrugs.

“Sabir and some very colloquial Greek are really the only others I can _speak_ as such. I read Persian fairly well but I can never remember how to pronounce anything. A little Syriac, and a little old literary Greek? Nicolò, do not look at me like that, if you had lived the life I did I am sure you would be no different.”

“Perhaps. That does not lessen your achievements. If I had been born a song bird I could sing as they do, but that does not lessen the beauty of their melodies.”

“If you had been born a song bird, I would be very unlucky indeed,” Yusuf says, and Nicolò squints at him.

“If you had been born a song bird,” Yusuf continues, “how would you have killed me save by pecking out my soft parts? Far better the quick mercy of your sword than that slow agony. And how would you have spoken to me? The language of the birds is not one I know at all. I would not trade your conversation for the finest music.”

“Now you credit me too much,” Nicolò says, but he is smiling. They sink into a comfortable silence for a while, and then Nicolò speaks up again.

“The life you lived, you said. You were a merchant, yes?” he asks, and Yusuf nods. “How did a merchant from Tunis come to speak Latin and know how to fight?”

“I thought I wanted to be a scholar, when I was younger,” Yusuf says. “I spent several years studying, many texts in many languages. We had Arabic translations of most of the old Greek and Syriac works, so I never got very good at those. We did not have translations for the Latin, so I learned it. But I realised after a while that making the reading and translating of books into my livelihood was turning the thing I loved into a chore. I went back to the family business so that I could keep literature as a thing of pleasure instead of obligation. As for the fighting, well, not all ports are friendly, and even in friendly places not everyone is honest. I liked travelling with the ships and guarding the goods much better than staying home doing the accounts.”

Nicolò is looking at him again with that same quiet awe that comes over him whenever Yusuf speaks of the things he knows or the places he has been that are unfamiliar to Nicolò, and as always the naked admiration warms Yusuf but makes him feel a little wrong-footed too. Empty flattery as a social nicety or business tactic is familiar enough, but Nicolò’s sincere appreciation is something else entirely.

“And you?” Yusuf asks. “Were you always a soldier?”

“No. One of my cousins was. He taught me to use a sword, and we would practice together whenever he came home, but it was only practice until…” Nicolò trails off, face shuttering as it often does when he is reminded of what brought him here. Yusuf wants to ask what he was before, then, if not a solider, but he wants to steer him away from his anguish more. Yusuf remembers wishing, back before he died for the first time, that something would make the invaders understand the horror they brought to innocent people, that they would all gorge themselves on their guilt and be sick with it. But there is nothing satisfying in the sight of Nicolò choking on his remorse.

“Speaking of practice, have I told you about _my_ first instructor in weaponry?” Yusuf asks, knowing he has not, and confident that some stories about Hasan, who was not completely incompetent but believed himself to be considerably more exceptional than he actually was, will serve to brighten Nicolò’s mood.

“You have not,” Nicolò says, with a softness in his eyes that suggests he knows exactly what Yusuf is doing, and is grateful for it.

* * *

“Do you want to return home?” Yusuf asks Nicolò another day. They have not really talked about what will happen after they reach Acre.

“To Genoa?” Nicolò asks. “To live?” Yusuf nods.

“No,” Nicolò says, without hesitation. “My life may not have ended when I first died, but the life I had there did. I made my peace and said my farewells before I left. It is better, I think, to let those I knew believe I died for the cause and that was the end of it than to try to make them understand the truth. And besides, _you_ do not want to go and live in Genoa, surely?”

He says it as though there is no question in his mind that wherever they go, they will go together. The utter lack of doubt on Nicolò’s part puts to rest a fear that, Yusuf realises now, has been niggling at him unacknowledged for days. Though Nicolò has never said or done anything to suggest it, some part of Yusuf could not help but worry that Nicolò might see their alliance as merely a matter of expedience, to be abandoned when the immediate goal is achieved and better prospects present themselves. Before the day Nicolò put down his sword, Yusuf could not have imagined walking away from Jerusalem with the man who kept killing him for company; now he cannot imagine doing anything without him.

“Genoa was not unpleasant, when I was there before,” Yusuf says lightly, because saying that he would go anywhere so long as he has Nicolò at his side seems too much.

“Do you want to return home to Tunis?” Nicolò asks.

“You do not want to go and live in Tunis, surely?” Yusuf parrots.

“I have never been to Tunis,” Nicolò says. “But I would be glad to see it, if that is where you wish to go.”

“To visit, one day, perhaps. But not to live. As you said: that life ended. Besides,” Yusuf adds with a grin, remembering something else, “I owe some money to the family business. I was supposed to pay it back with my share of the profit from our venture in Acre, but I spent most of that on travel and equipment for those of us who went to Jerusalem, and left the rest behind in the barracks. The family is probably already annoyed with me for running off to Jerusalem instead of escorting the merchandise home, and I do not imagine I would see a very warm reception, were I to finally return with an empty purse.”

“What was the debt for, if I may ask?”

“The voyage before Acre was to Ancona - you know Ancona?” Nicolò nods. “My niece’s husband, Abu, was with us. Nice boy, good eye for silk and linen, but terrible with money and sadly lacking in common sense. He is young, it was his first time away from home, and he made the mistake of joining a ‘friendly’ game of dice with some sailors from Ragusa who understood very quickly that he knew nothing about the denominations of the local currency. He ended up wagering, and losing, ten times what he had. They became rather less friendly when they realised that he could not pay, and it was very obvious that the locals would take the Ragusans’ side over ours if things got ugly, so I paid the difference. But it was more than my personal share too, so I had to borrow against the business’s cut.”

“Did they not understand that the expense was necessary?”

“Most of them did not think it was. Abu and Fatma were a love match, and most of my family never approved. My brother did not forbid them from marrying, but he saw the angry sailors as a welcome opportunity to be rid of the boy. No one – other than my niece – was very happy with me for intervening.”

“It was good of you to protect him,” Nicolò says.

“Fatma loves him, he loves her. It is not Abu’s fault that he was naïve and his family unimportant.”

“Did you ever marry?”

“Hah. No. Fortunately my brothers were more than happy to satisfy what desire our parents had for daughters-in-law and grandchildren, so they did not feel a need to push me to wed too.”

Yusuf has always been grateful for that. It is a blessing now, to not have the obligations of a wife and children to complicate his choices in the face of his new reality, but he was glad before, too. He has had his share of pleasant dalliances over the years, but the sort of great love that drew his niece and nephew together, that appeals to him in books and poetry, never seemed to materialise in his real life, and the idea of marrying just for the sake of marrying, to have a wife he did not love keeping a home he rarely saw, was never appealing.

“Did you not want a wife?” Nicolò asks. He is looking at Yusuf very intently, and Yusuf has the distinct impression that there is a different question Nicolò is really trying to ask, but what that question might be he cannot guess, so he shrugs and answers honestly.

“If there had been a woman I loved as Fatma and Abu loved one another, I suppose I would have wanted to marry her, but there never was. Were you married?”

“No. I… I was a priest, before I joined the holy war. There are some priests who do marry but it is decidedly … not encouraged.”

This is unexpected. Nicolò has never come off as unusually devout, nor does he seem like the sort to exploit faith as an avenue to earthly power. But then Yusuf does not know all that much about the Christian church. He is fairly sure of one thing, though. 

“I thought your priests did not fight?” Yusuf says.

“They do not. There were priests travelling with us, of course, and they did not bear arms, but I left the clergy to take up the sword. I thought…” Nicolò hesitates, and Yusuf thinks he might change the subject, but something about the set of his jaw suggests that he does want to say more. Yusuf reaches out and clasps his hand, silently urging him to continue. Nicolò squeezes back and takes a deep breath before speaking again.

“I thought I was doing God’s work, in the church. But it never felt like enough, never felt like I was making any real difference in the world. I said the prayers and went through the motions but it always felt like I was waiting for something else, some more concrete way to achieve something good.”

Yusuf nods. This, he understands; though he never felt any particular calling to what Nicolò would dub God’s work, he has also never enjoyed extended periods of aimlessness, of feeling as though there is no goal that he is heading towards, no new accomplishment on the horizon. Even now, unhurried though their progress is, it is reassuring to have Acre as an objective.

“My reasons for joining the priesthood were… not solely spiritual,” Nicolò continues, “and I thought perhaps I was too tainted to truly serve God’s purpose that way. When the call came to liberate the holy land, I thought that was the answer. It nearly did not matter, I could not have afforded the journey on my own, but one of the noblemen from Genoa who was going heard about me and thought having a former priest among his men would bring him luck. I had no doubt, then, that killing infidels was good and necessary.” He shakes his head, disgust with himself written clearly on his face. “I believed that would be my way to make the world better, what I was meant for.”

“And what do you believe now?”

“If I was meant for anything, it was finding you,” Nicolò says quietly. “Yusuf, I … I do not care where we go, so long as we go together. Forgive me, if that is too-”

“Forgive _me_ ,” Yusuf interrupts him. “I wanted to say the same, before, but I feared – never mind. We will go together, wherever we go.” Nicolò nods, and keeps hold of Yusuf’s hand, rubbing gently with his thumb. As an afterthought, Yusuf adds,

“Did you? Bring that nobleman luck?”

“I would not say so,” Nicolò says. “He was killed two years ago, during the siege of Nicaea. Arrow through the eye.”

“Ugh. That is one death I have not experienced.”

“I would not recommend it.”

“Is there one you _would_ recommend?” Yusuf asks, teasing.

“Those courtesy of a certain merchant from Tunis were not so bad,” Nicolò says, and his mouth does not quite smile, but his eyes do.

* * *

When they are not conversing, Yusuf wonders about the things that Nicolò seems unwilling to talk about. Yusuf has the impression that he is not an especially talkative person by nature, more content than many to stay quiet when he does not have anything of interest to say, but for the most part he seems as happy as Yusuf is to trade stories and questions about their respective lives. The way that Nicolò is quiet when he is simply content with the silence is, in some way that Yusuf could not precisely explain but recognises instinctively, different from the way he is quiet when he does not want to speak of something in particular.

Some of the subjects he avoids make sense, given how he now feels about the purpose that brought him here. He speaks easily and admiringly about Antioch’s architecture and old Roman remains but does not like to discuss the privations or violence of the siege. He will gladly repeat light-hearted stories about his former companions’ struggles with unfamiliar food or languages, and sometimes he mentions more serious things, like the friend who stayed behind in Antioch because he fell in love with and married a local Christian woman, or others who lost faith in the cause before Nicolò did, but he stays away from the uglier things.

That, Yusuf does not mind. He knows enough already about what happened at Nicaea and Antioch and all along the invaders’ path, and he does not need to hear Nicolò recount the particulars of his part in it to appreciate the remorse he now feels. Speaking it aloud will not undo anything that he has already done, and when it does come up, Yusuf finds it difficult to watch him struggle with the weight of his contrition when Yusuf is in no position to offer either solace or absolution. Yusuf bears no grudge for the deaths they traded at Jerusalem, but the other wrongs Nicolò has done are not for Yusuf to forgive.

But there are other stories that make Nicolò go quiet too, for reasons Yusuf cannot guess. When Yusuf asks about the ‘not solely spiritual’ reasons that led Nicolò to become a priest, Nicolò takes on that same haunted air as he did when speaking of the bet with his friend over the raw olives. He does not refuse to answer, he never does, but he gives only a short, vague response about serving God being the best option he had, which is clearly not the truth, or at least not most of it. One day he talks readily about his father’s work as a blade smith, his own lack of aptitude for the trade, and describes the workshop in detail only to abruptly change the subject after mentioning the nook behind the forge where the apprentices sometimes napped in the winter. Another time it happens while he speaks fondly of a certain pastry that they make in Genoa for Easter. Again after a story about finding a cat with her kittens in the cellar of a friend’s home – a female friend, so not even the same one from the olive wager. Again when Yusuf mentions an eel pie he had when he was in Genoa on business, and Nicolò says he tried to make that pie once, only to trail off with a vague comment about it not turning out well.

Yusuf has the sense that many if not all of the seemingly unrelated things that prompt Nicolò’s uncomfortable silences are threads connected to some greater tapestry that Yusuf cannot yet envision. Something in Nicolò’s past, the memory of which brings both joy and sorrow, that he cannot seem to avoid touching on yet is curiously unwilling to reveal. Nicolò is entitled to his privacy, of course; they have only been on speaking terms for, what is it now? Yusuf has lost track of the days. More than a week, maybe two? Less than a month, at any rate. It is not as though he owes Yusuf every detail of his life. Yusuf is not exactly rushing to divulge the more humiliating titbits from his own biography either, but this feels like something bigger, more important than an embarrassing personal or professional mishap. And Yusuf cannot shake the impression that Nicolò’s reticence comes not because he does not want to share, but because he has some fear of how Yusuf will react to this hidden tapestry if or when it comes to light. Which does unsettle him.

That Nicolò could have some secret worse than his history with the invaders, something that would actually bother Yusuf, seems unlikely. Whatever it is, it goes back to his peaceable and reasonably comfortable life in Genoa, and Yusuf cannot imagine Nicolò to be capable of anything terrible outside the context of war or extraordinary desperation. These days, seeing how careful he is to do the least damage possible when they have to resort to sneaking into someone’s orchards for food, how he always tries to give Yusuf the bigger portion when they find something nicer to eat than bitter greens, it is difficult to remember that he is capable of anything but kindness.

So if whatever he is hiding is not actually something awful, why is he afraid to talk about it? What makes him think Yusuf will take it badly? It is perhaps because everything else between them feels so strangely, wonderfully easy that this stands out so prominently in Yusuf’s mind. If their different homelands, different faiths, different native tongues, different sides in the war they both abandoned do not keep them from conversing like dear old friends, (dear old friends who for some reason insist on using a language of prayer and ancient literature that neither has mastered perfectly, but nevertheless,) what can this exception be?

Yusuf is not sure what would happen if he tried to ask Nicolò about it directly. Perhaps he would lie and claim to have no idea what Yusuf is talking about, which would help nothing and probably only serve to make him more guarded in the future; perhaps he would flat-out refuse to discuss it, which would hurt more than the omissions. Or perhaps he would confess whatever it is, but resent Yusuf for pushing him to it, and that would be worse still. So Yusuf does not ask. Not yet.

* * *

It feels, after a while, like life has always been this. Walking with Nicolò, talking to Nicolò, sharing whatever food they can find with Nicolò. It feels natural, normal, comfortable. Well, comfortable on an emotional level at least; Yusuf would not say no to a soft bed or a good hot meal. But the physical drawbacks of their current lifestyle do not seem to matter all that much. They are not starving, they are not in pain, and there have been times in his life when Yusuf has had no shortage of luxuries and felt far less content than he does now, wandering vaguely towards Acre with a gentle Frank who once killed him repeatedly and now holds his hand and pulls silly faces to make him laugh.

For all the time they spend talking about their past lives, everything that came before their truce is starting to seem increasingly unreal. Yusuf tells Nicolò stories from his own life daily, but that seems little different to telling stories out of books or legends; they are things that happened to someone else, long ago and far away. Even the things that were not long ago or far away at all – this feeling is not limited to what happened to Yusuf before the end of his mortality, but extends too to the long miserable weeks of blood and deathless death at Jerusalem after it, before Nicolò put down his sword. His old life might have ended with that first death, but it feels as though his new one only really began when he and Nicolò stopped fighting each other.

Yusuf even forgets about their curious predicament, sometimes. They attempt to hunt periodically, first with Yusuf’s sword, an effort that yields them a lot of laughter if no actual meat, and then with sharpened staves, which has so far also been unsuccessful, though they did very nearly get a hare once. One day when Yusuf is using Nicolò’s knife to make a spear for another try, the knife slips and slices into his thumb. He curses, both at the pain and at the prospect of dealing with such an injury when they have nothing to treat it with. Nicolò, looking very alarmed by the amount of blood, grabs Yusuf’s hand, pressing his fingers over the wound to try to stop the bleeding, and then they grin sheepishly at one another when they realise the cut has already closed without a trace.

Why this has happened to them, Yusuf still cannot begin to guess. But that does not seem to matter much anymore either. Not when it has, somehow, led to Nicolò cleaning the blood off his skin as carefully as if he were still injured, and then keeping hold of Yusuf’s hand, his fingers tracing idle circles around Yusuf’s knuckles, saying softly, “I am glad you are not hurt.”

If this is to be Yusuf’s life from now on, he does not mind in the slightest.

* * *

The dreams that Yusuf began having of Nicolò after his death stopped when they first encountered and killed one another. The dreams of the strange women, which began at the same time as the dreams of Nicolò, did not. Tonight, when Yusuf dreams of those women, they are not engaged in battles of their own against unfamiliar enemies, or travelling through unfamiliar landscapes, or preparing unfamiliar food. Tonight, they are naked, and though the exact geometry of their activities falls outside the realm of Yusuf’s own experience, the general shape of what they are doing is very familiar indeed.

This is another thing that Yusuf had forgotten, during those long hollow weeks between his first death and his truce with Nicolò. That bodies can want for something more than food, water, sleep, a cessation of pain. That friendly hand-holding is not the only form of contact to be craved. Since that first death, he has not even thought about touching himself, has not felt the slightest stirring of anything resembling lust. Now, startled awake by the intensity of the dream, he remembers. His cock remembers too.

Nicolò is sitting up beside him, keeping watch. Though they had not bothered that first night in the empty village’s goat shed, it seems too foolhardy to sleep at the same time when they are out in the open like this. The night is warm enough that they did not build a fire and the moon is only about half full, but Yusuf is nevertheless glad his clothing is loose enough to obscure his hardness. It is hardly the first time in his life that he has woken up excited in shared sleeping arrangements, and maybe Nicolò would just politely ignore it, but if not, Yusuf cannot imagine him laughing it off with a crude joke, and the thought of him reacting with discomfort or disdain is unbearable.

“All is well, you are safe,” Nicolò says softly, mistaking Yusuf’s heavy breathing for distress. He lays a hand on Yusuf’s shoulder, meaning to soothe, and the touch of his cool fingers feels scalding. Yusuf forces himself not to – what? Jerk away? Drag him closer?

“Yes, of course, just a dream,” Yusuf manages to say. “I, uh, need to piss.”

Yusuf does not in fact need to piss, water was scarce today, but he needs a moment to himself and this is the easiest excuse. He gets up and walks, carefully, a little way around the curve of the hillside they are settled on. Enough to be out of Nicolò’s sight, and hopefully enough that he will not notice the lack of the expected sound. Standing there, Yusuf runs through half-forgotten lists of the import duties in different ports in his head until he softens. It takes longer than the average piss, and he comes back to find Nicolò in a tense crouch, like he was on the verge of getting up to come check on him. 

“I am up now, you can sleep,” Yusuf tells him, hoping to forestall any questions. Nicolò does relax, at least, and sit back down.

“It is still early,” Nicolò says dubiously, gesturing to the position of the moon. Every time Nicolò takes the first watch, and he does most nights, he fails to wake Yusuf halfway through the night like he is supposed to; he always just waits for Yusuf to stir on his own and then claims to have lost track of the time. Then again, Yusuf never deliberately wakes him in the mornings either; it is not as though they have any real schedule to follow.

“I do not mind,” Yusuf says. There is no chance he could get back to sleep now, not with Nicolò sitting right there watching over him. He sits, and passes the bundled cloth of his head wrap that he has been using for a pillow to Nicolò.

“Very well,” Nicolò says, accepting it.

He lays down on his side, facing Yusuf as usual, and closes his eyes. Nicolò’s breathing settles quickly into the rhythms of sleep, and for a while Yusuf just stares into the night, thinking about the textile market in Alexandria, but it does not take long for his mind to drift back to what woke him. He wonders if Nicolò will have the same dream of the women. They do often see more or less the same things in these dreams, though not always. If he does, will he be aroused too? Shocked? Disgusted? Will he want to talk about it in the morning? Yusuf tries to imagine Nicolò, with his formal church Latin, struggling to explain what he saw, and it should be funny but Yusuf cannot really focus on the humour because then he thinks, what if Nicolò has the same dream, the same reaction, but does not wake up as Yusuf did?

What if Nicolò grows hard too, and in the innocence of sleep does not hesitate to satisfy the desire? What if he lays there and rubs himself through his clothes, or shifts onto his stomach to rut against the ground? What would he sound like, chasing his pleasure? How would he look upon achieving his release? Would it be much the same satisfaction he finds in a cool drink of water or sweet bite of fruit, or would this enjoyment be of a different kind entirely? Might he catch Yusuf’s scent from the cloth beneath his head, and find the dream shifting, away from those unknown women to a more familiar pair of bodies? Would _that_ disgust him, or thrill him even more?

Yusuf realizes that he is going stiff again, and has to scoff at himself. A few weeks of disinterest and now a single suggestive dream is enough to render him as randy as a youth who has only just discovered that his cock is good for something more than passing water. Ridiculous.

But it is not just that. He is quite sure that he would not be so worked up again with different company. The dream may have been the spark that ignited this blaze but the fuel is all Nicolò, and that fuel has been building, now that he is of a mind to recognise it, since they first laid down their weapons.

It was talking to Nicolò that made Yusuf feel like a person again, after those weeks of alienation and despair following his first death. The gentle touch of Nicolò’s hand that reminded him of the simple joy to be found in human contact. Now, when Yusuf is happy it is because of something Nicolò said or did, a story or a silly face or a touch; when he is unhappy it is because Nicolò is hungry or troubled and he cannot help. When Yusuf thinks of the unknown future stretching before them, it feels like an exciting opportunity instead of a frightening ordeal because Nicolò will be there with him. Somehow the man who killed him so many times has sunk into every part of him so much more deeply than his sword ever could. Is it any wonder, then, that Nicolò should be bound up inexorably in this reawakening of carnal appetites too?

Yusuf wants to touch himself; he wants to touch Nicolò even more. He does neither. Trying to satisfy himself with Nicolò sleeping so near is a step too far, and in the morning, he will have to be once more a respectful friend. He has no idea what the Genoese think of intimate relations between two men, no idea whether Nicolò might be amenable to the prospect either in the abstract or in the particular case of Yusuf. He may not be a priest any longer, but he was willing to devote himself to that life and left it for reasons that had nothing to do with chafing at the expectation of celibacy. He has never mentioned a lover or a desire for one, even when speaking of his friends’ love affairs; perhaps he is not even interested in sex at all. Yusuf has known such people before; he thinks fondly of Ishaq at the madrasa, who was so clever and beautiful he could have had his pick of women or men, could certainly have had Yusuf any way he liked. Lovely Ishaq, who understood just about everything that was put before him except why he should want to waste his time with sex, why anyone bothered with it at all if they were not trying to have a child.

Perhaps Nicolò is like Ishaq; perhaps he wants sex but does not want it with a man; perhaps he might want it with _a_ man but does not want it with Yusuf. Perhaps he does want it with Yusuf, but he has never done anything to suggest an amorous side to his affection. The last thing Yusuf wants is to drive Nicolò away or distress him with unwelcome advances, so he will have to keep this to himself unless Nicolò one day gives some sign of feeling the same way.

But Yusuf does not go back to the duty lists either. In the morning, he will pack this wanting away, lock it up in a chest in his head with the other things he would like and cannot have right now, like a few hours in a nice bathhouse, a change of clothes, a morning spent reading in a comfortable chair instead of trudging through the dusty countryside, a proper cooked meal. But now, in the quiet night, he can, in his mind at least, indulge this desire. Let himself look at Nicolò’s slightly parted lips in the weak moonlight and imagine tasting them. Imagine running his hands through Nicolò’s hair, not to clean out the remnants of a death but simply to feel it sliding between his fingers. Imagine searching out all the sensitive places on Nicolò’s body, learning exactly where to touch to draw out sighs, and smiles, and moans. Imagine making him cry out in ecstasy, and holding him in the sweet stupor that follows.

These thoughts keep Yusuf alert for some time, even after his unsatisfied cock loses interest again. If Nicolò dreams, of the women or otherwise, he gives no sign of it. He stirs only once, briefly, mumbling something incomprehensible that might be Genoese or might just be nonsense, before stilling again.

As the sky fades into the grey that heralds the dawn, the insufficient rest Yusuf had before the dream begins to catch up with him. Fantasies of elaborate, acrobatic love-making give way to fantasies of dozing in Nicolò’s arms afterwards. When Nicolò opens his eyes, he takes one look at Yusuf and hands the head cloth back, still bundled up.

“Yusuf. You sleep now,” he says.

“I can manage,” Yusuf says; it might be more convincing if the last syllable were not swallowed by a yawn. Nicolò smiles his little half-smile.

“There is no need,” he says firmly. “Sleep.”

Yusuf does, if only because behaving himself will be easier when he is not so tired.

* * *

Yusuf had been determined to put all lustful thoughts of Nicolò aside, but it is, of course, not quite so simple as that. Now that the idea is in his head, he cannot let go of it. When they find a spring to bathe in, the way the droplets of water run down Nicolò’s chest and back is hypnotic. Yusuf remembers that first day, standing by the well cleaning off the filth of battle, when he somehow managed to watch Nicolò scrubbing himself and feel it only vaguely indecent. Now it takes all his willpower to stop himself chasing the drops with his tongue. He cannot help staring overtly when Nicolò turns away and lowers his drawers to wash his groin, though at least he gets a hold of himself before Nicolò turns back. 

Yusuf catches himself staring they are not bathing, too. Nicolò is only half-dressed most of the time, which does not help; he stopped wearing his tattered hose when one of the seams gave out entirely, and he only puts on his padded coat sometimes in the evenings when it gets cooler, so during the day he is just in his drawers and knee-length tunic. And the tunic is full of holes, some from battle and some simply from age and wear, offering tantalising glimpses of his body for Yusuf’s gaze to linger on. Yusuf never imagined knobby white knees or a little stretch of pale belly skin could be so enticing.

Even the shadowed hollows of Nicolò’s ribs are an obsession, though the nature of that obsession varies with Yusuf’s mood. Sometimes he just wants to lick them; sometimes he is more detached and fixates on the geometry of the lines. Sometimes his affection turns almost motherly and he worries about how thin Nicolò is, though he knows that it is because the invaders spent more of the last year on the brink of starvation than not. Still. How things have changed; in the early days of the siege he found satisfaction in the invaders’ sorry state, and now he is fantasizing about watching one of them enjoy a proper meal and imagining how he might look with more meat on his bones. But then, to Yusuf, Nicolò is not one of _them_ anymore, not really, not in any way that matters. Too much has changed, and once he has the means to do so, Yusuf is going to make certain that Nicolò has a full stomach.

When they stumble upon a small grove of neglected pomegranate trees – it is probably still a little early for pomegranates but they find a few that are ripe enough – and break open the fruit, Yusuf has the near overwhelming urge to make Nicolò lie down with his head in Yusuf’s lap so Yusuf can feed the seeds to him one by one. And then lick the taste from his mouth. And then scatter more seeds across his naked body for himself to eat. And then compose a few verses comparing the pink of Nicolò’s nipples to the colour of the paler seeds.

Yusuf recites poetry, sometimes, while they are resting in the afternoons. He tries some in Latin occasionally, for Nicolò’s benefit, though he tends to end up butchering half the lines because he cannot remember the exact wording and the synonyms he comes up with on the spot do not fit the meter. Arabic verses are easier, both to remember correctly and to improvise convincingly when his memory fails. Nicolò does not understand a word of the Arabic ones, but he likes hearing them all the same, always watching Yusuf with that same quiet awe while he speaks. (Could Yusuf elicit the same awe putting his tongue to other purposes?) And now, Yusuf cannot help himself:

_“I die of love for him, perfect in every way,  
Lost in the strains of wafting music.  
My eyes are fixed upon his delightful body  
And I do not wonder at his beauty.  
His waist is a sapling, his face a moon,  
And loveliness rolls off his rosy cheek  
I die of love for you, but keep this secret:  
The tie that binds us is an unbreakable rope.  
How much time did your creation take, O angel?  
So what! All I want is to sing your praises.”_

“What is it about?” Nicolò asks.

“The beauty of God’s creation,” Yusuf says, waving his hand vaguely. “Saplings, the moon, that sort of thing.”

“It sounds lovely,” Nicolò says.

“The poet felt very strongly about his subject,” Yusuf says, and he has to bite his tongue to tamp down the urge to smirk at his own dissembling and then tell Nicolò the truth. And then kiss his mouth. And then kiss every other part of his delightful body.

This is ridiculous. It really is like being a sex-obsessed youth again. Though back then he was only concerned with his own cock, not dreaming up elaborate fantasies of how to bring pleasure to someone else. The former would, he suspects, be easier to manage; he doubts that taking himself in hand, or visiting a brothel once they reach the city and manage to acquire some money, will do anything to quench this thirst. What would he even ask for in a brothel? A woman as different from Nicolò as possible? A pale Frank with eyes like the sea? It would not matter; neither would help because neither would be him. 

* * *

Today they are taking their midday rest in the shade of a dried-up river bed. Nicolò is sitting upright against the bank, Yusuf stretched out on the ground beside him. Yusuf is trying to nap; he has been sleeping poorly the last few nights, his desire for Nicolò entirely too distracting in the dark, a little easier to set aside in the lazy afternoon heat. But he cannot seem to find a satisfactory position. Here a stone digs into his hip, here a lump in the ground presses into his back, here his arm cramps from being folded awkwardly under his face. He should probably go get his coat from the bundle of their meagre possessions, having it spread underneath him might help, but Nicolò tied it all up so neatly this morning that unravelling it seems like entirely too much effort. Besides, Yusuf’s coat is wrapped up with Nicolò’s and Nicolò was sleeping on his last night, so it will probably smell like him and that will not help at all. After Yusuf shifts around for the – what is it now, fourth time? fifth? – Nicolò tuts at him.

“Yusuf. Come here,” he says. Yusuf rolls over and looks at him. Nicolò looks back at him, expectant, and pats his thigh.

This is a terrible idea, but it is not as though Yusuf can tell him why, and the possibility of Nicolò feeling hurt if he refuses the offer without explanation is unacceptable. So Yusuf goes, settles down on his side with his head pillowed on Nicolò’s thigh, facing Nicolò’s knee because that is at least a little less tempting than his lap. If not for the way being so close makes Yusuf’s heart hammer in his chest, it would be very comfortable.

“Better?” Nicolò asks.

“Mm,” Yusuf hums, not trusting himself to say any actual words. Nicolò lays a hand on his shoulder and starts singing softly, something that sounds like a lullaby. Yusuf has heard him sing before, mostly Genoese folk songs in answer to Yusuf’s poetry while they are idling away the hottest hours or rummaging through greenery trying to decide what is edible. Yusuf can usually pick out a few words here or there, the odd fragment similar enough to its equivalent in Latin or Sabir to be recognisable. Sometimes Nicolò will translate, and Yusuf will slot the new vocabulary into his memory, gathering pieces so that he can start to get a sense of the patterns. Sometimes Nicolò will shake his head and say it sounds too silly in Latin or he does not have the words, and Yusuf will nod and enjoy it anyway.

Nicolò may not, as he once said, be a song bird, but he has a warm, rich voice that can range from sweet and clear to pleasantly gravelly depending on what he is singing. Today Yusuf does not try to analyse the language, just lets himself be lulled by the melody. He did not think he would be able to sleep like this either, but he is tired and Nicolò was right, it is better this way. Nicolò’s touch feels good, regardless of what else Yusuf wants, and his voice is soothing, and there is a hint of a breeze to cool them… Yusuf drifts off.

Nicolò is no longer singing, when Yusuf wakes some unknown amount of time later. His hand is still on Yusuf’s shoulder, his breathing slow and steady. Perhaps he has fallen asleep too. The prospect does not worry Yusuf; Nicolò is a light sleeper and it is unlikely that anyone would be able to approach them here without the crunch of gravel waking him, and anyway during the day it should be obvious enough to any would-be thieves that they have nothing worth stealing.

Yusuf wonders if they could make resting like this as much a part of their habits as the touching of hands. Nicolò as a pillow is far better than Yusuf’s head cloth. Passing the night with Nicolò’s head on his own thigh would probably be a sort of torture, but one that would, he suspects, be entirely worth enduring.

“Sleep well?” Nicolò asks quietly. Not dozing after all, then.

“How did you know I was awake?” Yusuf asks. He should get up, probably, but he does not want to and Nicolò has done nothing to urge him along.

“Your breathing is different when you are asleep,” Nicolò says.

“Was I out long?”

Nicolò hums, non-committal. “I was not really keeping track.”

“Snoring?”

A huff, amused this time.

“You only snore when you are on your back,” Nicolò tells him.

“Ah, so this offer to be my pillow was not entirely a selfless one,” Yusuf jokes.

“I never said it was selfless,” Nicolò says. The words are followed by a little hitch in his breath and an involuntary twitch of his fingers on Yusuf’s shoulder, as though he has confessed something he did not mean to. Yusuf’s breath hitches too. He shifts, wanting to take Nicolò’s hand to reassure him, but his arm is pinned under him and he cannot quite reach, so he rolls onto his back and just catches Nicolò’s hand in both of his before he can withdraw it. Yusuf does not look up yet, a little afraid of what he might see in Nicolò’s face, a little afraid of what Nicolò might see in his. Nicolò does not try to pull away, does not move. Yusuf holds Nicolò’s hand for a moment, and then presses it to his chest, over his heart.

“You need not hesitate to say anything to me,” Yusuf tells him.

“It is not the saying that makes me hesitate,” Nicolò says, resigned. His voice is pitched lower than Yusuf has ever heard it before, and the sound of it makes him shiver despite the heat. He clutches Nicolò’s hand tighter against him lest he mistake it for displeasure. 

“You need not hesitate to _do_ anything with me,” Yusuf says, and feels Nicolò’s hand, his whole body, shudder.

“You do not know what it is that I wish to do,” Nicolò says.

Yusuf knows very well what he hopes Nicolò means, but he does not dare to name it explicitly, not yet, not while there is still a real possibility that Nicolò is talking about something else entirely. Nicolò’s people are, after all, not Yusuf’s people, and a few days passed in markets and dockside inns are hardly enough for an exhaustive education in what the Genoese consider shameful or forbidden. For all he knows, Nicolò’s secret desire might be as innocuous as weaving flowers into Yusuf’s hair, or he might want to perform some arcane ritual that carries great significance for him but would mean no more than one of his untranslated folk songs to Yusuf. That he might want something that Yusuf would be unwilling to give him seems impossible.

“You gave me death more than a dozen times,” Yusuf says, “and I would suffer each one again, gladly, to see you smile.”

Nicolò makes a small noise that Yusuf cannot interpret.

“I would sooner die a thousand times than hurt you again,” Nicolò says. “In any way.”

“Then what holds you back?”

“Violence is not the only trespass.”

“I tell you again, you need not hesitate,” Yusuf says, finally looking up. Nicolò is looking away, jaw clenched, expression otherwise unreadable. Yusuf wants to reach for him, but he seems – absurdly, considering their position – so far away.

Yusuf gives Nicolò’s hand another squeeze and then hauls himself upright and moves to sit so that they are facing one another. Nicolò draws his legs in, leaving Yusuf room to shuffle closer, though his gaze remains locked on the ground.

“Nicolò. If you wish it, I will yawn, and stretch, and thank you for the pleasant nap, and forget that anything else was said,” Yusuf offers, even as he thinks, _liar, you will think of nothing else all night_.

“You are too kind,” Nicolò says, and it does not sound like polite acquiescence. It sounds like defeat, but not the defeat of a vanquished enemy. No, not defeat. It sounds like the recognition of something too great, too profound to be denied, like the movement of the sun or the breaking of a wave. Which is madness. He says it as though Yusuf’s willingness to release him from his obvious discomfort is some magnificent act of mercy when in truth Yusuf simply cannot stand to see him distraught.

Nicolò looks at him finally. Meets his eyes, just for an instant, too brief for Yusuf to guess what he is thinking. And then he looks down, at Yusuf’s mouth. Nicolò reaches out, so slowly that Yusuf can see how his hand trembles, to cup Yusuf’s jaw, and Yusuf wishes wildly that his beard would vanish so that he could better feel Nicolò’s fingers on his cheek. In this moment, the full force of both their abandoned armies could descend on this dried-up riverbed and Yusuf would not notice them over the rush of blood in his ears and the fierce pounding of his own heart.

Nicolò lifts his thumb, and passes it over Yusuf’s lower lip, the faintest whisper of a touch, so light Yusuf could almost believe he imagined it. Yusuf does not dare to move, hardly dares to breathe lest it frighten him off. Nicolò does it again, the slightest degree more firmly, the blunt edge of his overgrown nail grazing Yusuf’s upper lip this time while the soft pad of his thumb skims the lower, and it feels like nothing else in Yusuf’s body exists but those two tiny contrasting sensations.

“You are too kind, and too wonderful, and I need you too much,” Nicolò says, and he sounds like he is begging for forgiveness. He meets Yusuf’s gaze again, and there is terror there, a fear that seems deeper than simply that of rejection, but also something that might be hope. Yusuf cannot seem to make his voice work so he prays that Nicolò will recognise the earnest invitation in his eyes.

And then Nicolò leans in, and kisses Yusuf’s mouth. The press of his lips is scarcely any less delicate than the caress of his thumb a moment ago but he lingers, long enough for Yusuf to savour the sweetness of it, and long enough for his control over his own need to finally crack. Yusuf reaches for him blindly, one hand finding the back of Nicolò’s head, the other his waist, and hauls him in closer, practically dragging him into his lap, desperate to touch more of him. Nicolò makes a startled sound but comes along without any resistance and slots his legs in around Yusuf’s. Yusuf tilts his head and deepens the kiss, catching Nicolò’s lower lip between both of his.

Nicolò’s other hand settles on Yusuf’s face and for a horrible instant Yusuf fears he is going to push him off but Nicolò does the opposite, tugging Yusuf in even closer still. When Yusuf gasps he feels the slick sweep of Nicolò’s tongue, all hesitance gone, and Yusuf opens for him eagerly. For what could be minutes or hours Yusuf is aware of nothing but Nicolò’s mouth, his hands, the weight of him in Yusuf’s lap, the swoop and clench in Yusuf’s gut at every slight change in the pressure or angle of the kiss, the incredible joy of finally having this.

When they break off at last, both breathing hard, Nicolò does not pull back, just trails his hands from Yusuf’s jaw down to his throat and rubs his cheek against Yusuf’s. The stick-straight hairs of Nicolò’s beard catch against the curled ones of Yusuf’s and he could swear he is aware of it in every root. Nicolò smooths his fingers gently over Yusuf’s neck, tracing little circles on Yusuf’s skin that feel no less intimate than the touch of his mouth. For all his pent-up longing, Yusuf finds that he has no urge to rush things along to a climax; having Nicolò in his arms, nuzzling at the little hairless spot beside Yusuf’s ear, is its own sort of bliss.

That said, he certainly does not object when Nicolò eventually seeks his mouth again. Nicolò slides his arms around Yusuf’s neck, pressing even more of them together, and Yusuf clutches at his waist, and it is exquisite. It is exquisite, for a moment, right up until they overbalance and Yusuf topples helplessly backwards, taking Nicolò with him. Nicolò somehow has the presence of mind to get one of his hands behind Yusuf’s head and thrust the other out to hit the ground first, softening the blow to Yusuf’s skull. Yusuf still grunts from the impact, and then bursts out laughing, and Nicolò laughs with him, face buried against Yusuf’s neck.

After they calm down, Nicolò props himself up on his elbows and lifts a hand to push his hair out of his face, and Yusuf notices some little streaks of blood, studded with tiny bits of gravel, on the base of his palm.

“Your hand,” Yusuf says, surprised but also not really surprised by how rough his voice sounds.

“It is nothing, already healed,” Nicolò says, sounding much the same. Yusuf takes Nicolò’s hand anyway, licks his own thumb and uses it to clean away the blood and gravel from his unblemished skin as Nicolò watches him with wide dark eyes.

“Are you all right?” Nicolò asks. “Your head?”

“Fine. When I imagined this, it was with somewhat more dignity on my part and no blood spilt on yours, but I would change nothing,” Yusuf says, bringing Nicolò’s hand to his mouth so he can kiss the spot where the scratches were.

“You imagined this?” Nicolò asks wonderingly, curling his fingers to cup Yusuf’s cheek once more, and Yusuf has to laugh again.

“Nicolò, how can it be that you have observed the way my breathing changes when I wake but have not noticed how I have been longing for you? I did try to keep it to myself but an excess of subtlety has never been one of my faults.”

“Perhaps I noticed something,” Nicolò admits, ducking his head a little, “but I thought I was only imagining what I wished to be true.”

“Remind me to tell you,” Yusuf says, raising a hand to stroke Nicolò’s hair, “when I can concentrate on translating properly, that is, what that poem from the other day _really_ means.”

Nicolò’s face scrunches up for an instant as he tries to remember what Yusuf is talking about, then breaks into a mock-scandalised expression as realisation dawns.

“Yusuf! You lied to me about your poetry?”

“Not mine, and not exactly _lied_. The beauty of God’s creation takes many forms,” Yusuf says, allowing the shit-eating grin that he had to suppress then to come out in full force now. Nicolò chortles quietly, shaking his head, then murmurs something in Genoese that Yusuf cannot understand.

“What was that?” Yusuf asks.

“Ask me again later,” Nicolò tells him, and leans in to give Yusuf something else to do with his mouth.

Nicolò was hardly timid before, but there is more heat in his kiss now, more hunger, as though the interlude of levity served to dispel any lingering restraint. His hands are busier too, fingers twisting in Yusuf’s hair, tugging like he needs Yusuf closer, as if he did not have Yusuf pinned to the ground, as if Yusuf were even remotely interested in being anywhere else. Yusuf runs his hands down Nicolò’s sides to grasp his hips, holding them steady as he thrusts up, and is as delighted to find Nicolò hard as he is by Nicolò’s moan that he feels in his mouth as much as he hears.

Nicolò catches on quickly, shifting a little to get a better angle to roll his hips against Yusuf’s in a slow delicious grind. Yusuf is happy for him take over, freeing him to find the ragged hem of Nicolò’s tunic and shove it up so he can get his hands on bare skin, roaming over Nicolò’s back. He wants them both naked immediately, but he also wants not to let go of Nicolò, not to let Nicolò move off him even for a moment. Nicolò apparently feels the same way, because one of his hands appears at Yusuf’s waist, scrabbling ineffectually at Yusuf’s sash like _that_ is somehow the problem, without actually separating their bodies in the slightest.

It suddenly occurs to Yusuf that they really _should_ get their clothes out of the way, considering that he for one is almost certainly going to come soon if they keep on like this, and neither of them has any other undergarments or any idea when they will next have enough water to spare for washing what they are wearing. He reluctantly drags his mouth away from Nicolò’s and says – though it comes out as more of a growl –

“Nicolò. Clothes. Off.”

Nicolò blinks at him, dazed, obviously entirely too distracted to remember even basic Latin, and Yusuf has to kiss him again for that, but forces himself not to get lost in it this time.

“This,” he says, tugging on Nicolò’s tunic, “Off. Please.”

Nicolò gets it this time, sitting up to wrestle his tunic off as viciously as if the thing were poisoned. Yusuf undoes his sash and cannot get his tunic off entirely in this position, but he rucks it up to his armpits at least and then prods at Nicolò’s hips so he raises them enough for Yusuf to open his trousers and drawers and shove then down as far as he can. Nicolò has his hands on the strings of his own drawers but is not doing anything about them, just staring, transfixed, face flushed, at Yusuf’s hard cock.

“Nicolò?” Yusuf asks, careful, unsure whether to take it as a compliment or a sign that this is too much too fast for Nicolò.

Nicolò says something in Genoese, not sounding afraid or uncertain. Yusuf recognises the word for ‘beautiful’, which is the same as in Sabir, but with an extra bit that, if Yusuf has got it right from the folk songs, means ‘very’. Probably safe to consider it a compliment, then.

“You are beautiful too,” Yusuf says in Latin, putting his hand over Nicolò’s and giving it a squeeze. Nicolò shakes his head as if to clear it and glances up, a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, then opens the laces and pushes his drawers down too. Yusuf takes only a moment to admire him – he will have to look properly later, but the minute or so that has passed since they last kissed has already been too long – and pulls him back down to claim his lips again.

Nicolò’s hands return to Yusuf’s hair, his fingers twining into the curls, while Yusuf wraps his arms around Nicolò’s back and waist, thrilling at the press and slide of their bare skin, not caring at all that they are both a bit sticky from sweat. The gravel digging into his backside does not matter, the afternoon heat does not matter, nothing matters other than Nicolò moving with him. Nicolò’s cock bumps against Yusuf’s as he shifts and Yusuf cannot tell if the groan that vibrates between their mouths is his or Nicolò’s or both. When he was fantasizing, Yusuf had dreamt up all sorts of clever, sophisticated ways to bring them mutual pleasure, and they will certainly have to explore those later too, but right now he cannot think about anything more than Nicolò’s tongue in his mouth, Nicolò’s body in his arms, Nicolò’s hips rocking against his.

Everywhere they touch, every nip of Nicolò’s lips, every tug of his fingers in Yusuf’s hair, every little grunt and keen goes straight to Yusuf’s cock, making it jump and twitch between them, and every time it does he feels Nicolò’s jerk too and Nicolò grinds down tighter against him, until they are not even really kissing or thrusting any more, just panting into each other’s mouths and rutting frantically together. The need for more, harder, closer is so overwhelming that it is almost a relief when Yusuf’s pleasure abruptly crests and he spills between them with a shout. The satisfaction spreads through him instantly, like a surge of heat turning his candle-wax limbs loose and pliant. Nicolò freezes and Yusuf drags his hands down to Nicolò’s backside, kneading, encouraging him to keep going, mouthing sloppily at his lips until he comes as well a moment later, quieter but shaking in Yusuf’s arms with the intensity of it.

The tension seeps out of Nicolò’s body too and he collapses against Yusuf, their faces mashed together in a way that is perhaps not ideal – delicious though Nicolò is, Yusuf could do without a mouthful of his beard – but not uncomfortable enough to warrant moving. They stay like that, holding each other, until their breathing and heart rates settle, and for a while after, until the rough ground against Yusuf’s bare skin starts to seem relevant again and the spend between their stomachs begins to turn tacky. Eventually, Nicolò lifts his head, kisses Yusuf’s cheekbone.

Then Nicolò pushes himself up further, pulling a face at the way they stick together that makes Yusuf want to tug him back down and kiss him again, but he is not wrong about it becoming unpleasant so Yusuf lets him go. Nicolò gets to his feet, a little unsteadily, steps out of his drawers, and goes to the bundle of their things. Yusuf stretches a bit and watches him, watches the movement of the muscles in his arse and thighs as he bends to pull out a water skin and one of the pieces of his hose that have been relegated to wash rags.

“Bring the coats too,” Yusuf tells him, shifting to dislodge a bit of gravel from his back. Nicolò gives him a curious look and he adds, “For us to lie on. Or did you want to get dressed?”

Nicolò does his little almost-smile and brings the coats too, while Yusuf sits up to shed his tunic fully and untangle his drawers and trousers from his legs. Nicolò sets the coats aside to clean their bodies first, using one end of the rag to mop up most of the mess and then dampening the other from the water skin to wipe away the rest. His movements are much the same as that first day when they were washing at the well: brisk and efficient as he deals with himself, almost unbearably tender when he touches Yusuf, as careful with the less sensitive skin of Yusuf’s stomach as with the delicate flesh of his softened cock. It makes Yusuf’s chest ache, makes him want to wrap Nicolò in the finest softest silks so he never feels anything harsh again.

When Nicolò finishes with the rag, he offers Yusuf a drink of the water, then sips some himself, and Yusuf reaches for him as soon as he closes the water skin and puts it down. Yusuf kisses him, sweet and slow this time, trying to pour all the affection swelling his heart into the press of his lips and the stroking of his hands over Nicolò’s jaw and neck. Nicolò makes a quiet noise, almost a whimper, that pierces him like an arrow.

Yusuf starts to lay back, wanting Nicolò’s weight on him again, but Nicolò stops him, petting his shoulder apologetically.

“Your back. The coats,” he says.

“Right,” Yusuf agrees. Yusuf’s is bigger and thicker so they spread that one out on the ground and fold Nicolò’s up for a pillow, and Yusuf stretches out and tugs Nicolò down on top of him. They kiss lazily for a while, not building to anything else, just enjoying one another. Eventually they settle with Nicolò’s face tucked in against Yusuf’s neck, his fingers playing idly with the hair on Yusuf’s chest. Then his fingers still too, and Yusuf thinks they might both doze off for a bit.

It seems like a dream at first, coming back to awareness to find Nicolò naked in his arms, breathing softly against his collarbone. But far better than a dream, because it does not vanish when he opens his eyes. Nicolò is there, real, solid, and Yusuf gets to hold him and kiss him and bask in the warmth of wanting and knowing he is wanted too.

“Hello,” Nicolò murmurs, when he stirs.

“Hello,” Yusuf whispers back.

“Should we get up?” Nicolò asks. He shifts a little, stretching.

“Do you want to?” Yusuf asks him.

“Not really.”

“Neither do I,” Yusuf says, and Nicolò gives a pleased hum and does not move off, just shuffles down a bit so he can fold his arms over Yusuf’s chest and prop his chin on them, gazing up at Yusuf.

“You are beautiful,” Nicolò tells him.

“Remembered our Latin now, have we?” Yusuf asks, grinning, and Nicolò grins back at him, flushing a little.

“Beautiful and very distracting,” he amends.

“So are you,” Yusuf says, lifting a hand to stroke Nicolò’s cheekbone. “You have no idea, how difficult it has been to want you and to have you so close yet not _have_ you.”

“I think I have some idea,” Nicolò tells him.

“May I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“You seemed so afraid to let me know what you wanted,” Yusuf says. “Terrified even. Does your church regard this as such a grave sin?”

He is surprised when Nicolò snorts.

“The church would not approve, but the church regards lust of any kind as a sin. As Father Francesco used to tell us,” he clears his throat and puts on a doddering old-man voice, “‘Understand, brothers and sisters, the carnal act between husband and wife is a matter of duty. It is to be accomplished as dispassionately as possible and only when absolutely necessary. As you do not put things in your mouth which are not food, as you do not wipe your arse when you have not shit, so you must not fornicate save when you are married and prepared to bring forth a child.’”

Yusuf chokes on his laughter and Nicolò snickers along with him.

“If all you Christians actually believed that, I do not think there would be so many of you in the world,” Yusuf says.

“Indeed,” Nicolò agrees. “I always thought that God would not have given us bodies that can feel such pleasure if he did not mean for us to enjoy the gift.”

“If not that, then what made you so hesitant?”

Nicolò sighs and looks away.

“Everyone does not follow the church in all things, but it is not only the church that would take issue. For a man to desire another man…” He trails off, gathering his thoughts, and then starts again. “One night, at the monastery where I trained for the priesthood, we found a man beaten half to death at our door. We took him in, and tended his injuries, and he thanked us profusely but would say nothing of what had happened to him. Not until he went to confession a few days later. Cosimo should never have shared what was said, but he was only in the church at all because he was a younger son with no inheritance, and he never took any of it very seriously. He told us that the man, his name was Alessandro, had been at the tavern in the village, talking and drinking with another man he met there. It was late, and Alessandro felt lustful, and thinking that his companion felt the same, he made his desire known. The other was outraged. So outraged, that he and his friends beat Alessandro to the bloody mess that we found at our door.”

“Nicolò,” Yusuf interrupts, horrified, “tell me you did not think that I would-”

“No, no, never,” Nicolò says immediately. He looks up, apologetic, and grabs Yusuf’s hand to kiss it. “Never that. It was not the beating which made me afraid. That was not the first time I saw what brutal men in their cups will do to anyone who catches their displeasure, be it a man in a tavern or their own wives and children. I could never think that of you.”

Yusuf squeezes Nicolò’s fingers, relaxing, and Nicolò’s mouth twists in a small rueful smile.

“Even when we were killing one another, you were never vicious, never cruel,” Nicolò says. “You took my life when I was your enemy with more mercy than some men show to those who jostle them accidentally in the street.”

“Nicolò,” Yusuf says, heart in his throat, and Nicolò presses another kiss to his knuckles before continuing.

“I tell you this not because of what happened to Alessandro outside the tavern, but because of what happened in the monastery after we learned the reason he had been attacked. The way that some of the brothers changed when they knew that Alessandro had wanted to lie with a man. Not all of them. Some thought it perfectly normal, I think, and some cared more about Cosimo’s transgression in gossiping about it than anything Alessandro had done. No one said anything to him directly, no one tried to make him leave before he was ready. But it was clear to see that some of them no longer considered him a victim but a sinner himself, punished appropriately for his improper desire. Some of the warmest, gentlest brothers began to look on him with revulsion, or hesitated to touch him, or balked at being alone in a room with him. All their kindness, all their compassion, could not overcome their disgust for this one thing. _That_ was what I feared. I never thought you would be cruel, but if I made my desire known, and the result was that you could not help but look at me as they looked at him…” He shudders at the prospect and Yusuf presses his hand again.

“Never,” Yusuf tells him, now feeling a rush of regret for leaving Nicolò to suffer this apprehension any longer than he had to. “Forgive me, Nicolò. I hesitated myself because I worried that it would make you uncomfortable, knowing how much I want you, if you did not want me in the same way. I had no idea that –”

“There is nothing to forgive,” Nicolò insists, kissing Yusuf’s hand one more time. “From the first time we spoke, I have felt that I was meant to find you. I should not have doubted that we would fit together in this way too.”

“Come here,” Yusuf says, tugging at his shoulder, and Nicolò slides back up to meet Yusuf’s mouth once more.

* * *

Eventually, reluctantly, they separate, get dressed, and leave the dry river bed to look for food and water. 

“Is this one of the good ones?” Yusuf asks, waving a stem of some vaguely familiar-seeming greenery in Nicolò’s direction. When they first started foraging, they quickly discovered that although Yusuf has many useful skills, the art of identifying foliage is not among them. Nicolò is no expert on the local flora either, but he has a much better eye for seeking out the things they have successfully consumed before and deciding whether a particular specimen is known or new. After Yusuf gave himself a terrible stomach ache by eating leaves he _thought_ were the same leaves they had both eaten the other day, which Nicolò immediately recognised as something else entirely when Yusuf pointed out the plant, they agreed that decisions about what to pick would be Nicolò’s domain.

Nicolò looks over his shoulder.

“It did not make us ill, but you did not like it much,” he says.

“Did you like it?” Yusuf asks. It is a bit of a pointless question; they are not exactly spoilt for choice, and Nicolò has never complained about anything they have eaten. Even when they do take a chance on something new and end up regretting the gamble, he never makes a fuss, though he does seem to enjoy listening to Yusuf curse enough for the both of them, mixing Arabic and Tamazight and Latin and Greek into a stew of disgruntled profanity. Still, Nicolò must have his preferences when there more options available, and Yusuf wants to find out what they are.

Nicolò takes on an expression that Yusuf is unsure how to interpret, comes over to where Yusuf is standing, and kisses him thoroughly.

“What was that for?” Yusuf asks, slightly breathless, when they break off.

“I felt that I wanted to kiss you, and then I remembered that I _could_ kiss you,” Nicolò says, quiet, like he is sharing a secret, and Yusuf’s heart suddenly feels far too big for his chest.

“You can do anything you like with me,” Yusuf says.

“If I truly took you up on that now I fear we would both starve to death,” Nicolò says, his voice serious but his eyes sparkling.

“It would not stick,” Yusuf points out, and Nicolò kisses him again, then releases him and steps away.

“Later,” Nicolò says. “I will not have you go hungry on my account.”

They eat sitting pressed together side by side, feeding one another and sucking each other’s fingers, and while the raw greens are not exactly the erotic feast of Yusuf’s imaginings he has no complaints. After the food is finished, they shed their clothes and spend a long time kissing in one another’s arms again. Eventually Nicolò rolls onto his side and raises his leg in invitation, and Yusuf presses in close behind him to work Nicolò’s cock to completion with his hands while finding his own pleasure between Nicolò’s thighs.

When they finally settle for the evening, Yusuf says,

“You should sleep first tonight, I had a good rest in the afternoon.”

Nicolò eyes him a little suspiciously, like he thinks Yusuf must be up to something. Yusuf kisses him, yet again, because he can, delighted by the way Nicolò melts into his embrace instantly, again, still.

“I am not sleepy yet and I want to hold you,” Yusuf says into his ear.

“Will either of us get any sleep that way?” Nicolò asks, sounding like he would not be especially bothered if they did not.

“I will behave,” Yusuf promises.

“If you must,” Nicolò sighs.

They arrange themselves with Yusuf sitting up against a tree, Nicolò slouched down in Yusuf’s lap with Yusuf’s arms around his shoulders and his head against Yusuf’s chest. It is probably not the most practical way of keeping watch, but Nicolò always wakes quickly at any disturbance and anyway it rarely takes more than a bit of arm-waving to scare off the foxes and wildcats they occasionally see at night.

Yusuf is true to his word, resisting the temptation to play with Nicolò’s hair or distract him from his rest with wandering hands, and it takes him only slightly longer than normal to drift off. And then Yusuf just sits there, enjoying Nicolò’s weight against him, marvelling at his fortune. How is it that all the horrors of war, the pain of death, the fear and loneliness of waking from it over and over, have lead him to such profound bliss? He has not had a decent bed or a decent meal in weeks and he cannot remember ever being happier than he was today, than he still is now. Nicolò must be right, they must have been meant for one another somehow. It cannot be mere coincidence that the person who shares his inability to die, who should by all reason still be his enemy, is a kind, beautiful man who looks at him with wonder and makes him laugh, makes him hot with desire, makes him feel as though nothing else matters so long as they have one another.

* * *

The next morning, their progress is slow even by their very relaxed standards, because they set off hand in hand, and keep stopping to kiss or smile at each other or gaze into one another’s eyes like besotted youths. It is ridiculous and joyous and Yusuf thinks it is lucky they are wandering the countryside with no urgency and only one another for company, so they have no reason not to indulge these impulses fully.

Near midday, they find a river. An actual river, not a tiny stream, not a dried-up riverbed, a proper _river,_ full of water.

“Can you swim?” Yusuf asks Nicolò.

“Yes. Can you?”

“Oh yes,” Yusuf tells him, grinning, and starts stripping his clothes off.

They enjoy the water innocently for a while, moving around idly, savouring the coolness and the chance to submerge themselves in it rather than just making do with a bucket from a well or a shallow stream. Then Nicolò gets a sly look in his eyes, disappears below the surface just long enough for Yusuf to lose track of him and almost begin to worry, and then he pops up abruptly right behind Yusuf, tackling him into the water. Yusuf comes up sputtering and launches his own assault and they carry on like that, laughing riotously, dunking and splashing and grabbing at each other, until they are both half-hard and breathless. Finally Yusuf gets a hold of Nicolò around his waist and drags him – not that he puts up any resistance after he catches Yusuf’s look and realises the game has shifted – to the shallows by the bank, presses him into the soft mud and reeds, and kisses the smirk off his face.

Yusuf settles over him, keeping him pinned – not that he resists this either – and kisses Nicolò’s mouth thoroughly, then works his way lower. He kisses down Nicolò’s neck, bites gently at the join of his shoulder, licks up the drops of water pooling at his collarbones, cataloguing the spots that make him shudder or gasp. Nicolò moans softly for him, sounding half-wrecked already, his hands by turns petting and clutching Yusuf’s hair. Yusuf reaches his chest and sucks at one of his pebbled nipples, sucks harder when he feels how it makes Nicolò’s whole body tense and jerk underneath him.

He lingers over Nicolò’s nipples for a while, sucking, scraping carefully with his teeth, soothing with his tongue, thrilled by Nicolò’s noises and the way his chest heaves. One of Nicolò’s hands leaves Yusuf’s head, and when Yusuf glances to the side he sees it clenched in a white-knuckled grip around a clump of reeds. The hand still on Yusuf’s hair stays more disciplined, tugging nicely but not tearing, and though Yusuf would not particularly mind if Nicolò were a bit rougher with him, the consideration for his comfort makes Yusuf’s chest ache a little.

Nicolò is still under water from the waist down and Yusuf is about to try to make him shift higher on the bank so he can get his mouth on the tempting jut of Nicolò’s cock, only for Nicolò to suddenly release Yusuf’s hair and the reeds both and grab at his shoulders, pulling him up instead.

“Too much?” Yusuf asks, and Nicolò blinks at him with that too-aroused-for-Latin look that Yusuf is beginning to adore, then shakes his head and pulls harder.

“Want to touch you,” he manages and Yusuf grins at him.

“You are touching me, Nicolò,” he points out helpfully, rolling his shoulders against Nicolò’s grasp. Nicolò rolls his eyes and, apparently unwilling to wait for Yusuf to come up to him, slides down under Yusuf far enough to take hold of his cock. The warmth of Nicolò’s hand contrasting with the coolness of the water is startlingly good and Yusuf’s smugness evaporates. He tips his head down against Nicolò’s shoulder but keeps his hips up, leaving Nicolò room to move.

“Tell me if it is too… if you want it different,” Nicolò says, stroking him firmly. It occurs to Yusuf, through the fog of desire, to wonder how much of this Nicolò has done before. He does not kiss like that is new to him, and his grip now lacks the awkwardness Yusuf would expect if this were his first time handling a cock other than his own, but there is a hint of doubt in his voice, like he is not just open to instruction but worried about doing something wrong. Perhaps it is inexperience, perhaps only the uncertainty of not yet knowing a new partner’s preferences, but regardless, Yusuf feels an urgent need to dispel it.

“I want it any way you want to give it to me,” Yusuf tells him, raising his head to look Nicolò in the eyes, and Nicolò makes a face like that was not what he meant but he is pleased all the same.

“This is good,” Yusuf adds, “this is _very_ good,” and he makes no effort to stifle his groan when Nicolò drags his thumb across the tip of Yusuf’s cock in a particularly delicious way. Yusuf drops his head again and Nicolò turns to him this time, nuzzling and kissing whatever he can reach, Yusuf’s cheekbone, the corner of his eye, the shell of his ear. Nicolò’s free hand moves to Yusuf’s hip and then wanders, caressing the small of his back, the curve of his arse, down to his thigh, bringing the warmth of his fingers to the parts that are below the surface and the cool of the water to what is above it. Nicolò’s mouth and his touch on Yusuf’s arse and thigh stay all sweet and teasing while his grip on Yusuf’s cock is strong and steady, unrelenting, and somehow each sensation seems to amplify the other until Yusuf is out of his mind with it, mumbling a litany of praise that may or may not be in Latin, may or may not be any actual words in any actual language.

Nicolò keeps petting him and pumping his cock while he spills, shuddering, and then Nicolò stops pumping but keeps holding him for a long moment as he comes down, before finally, slowly releasing him back to the cool water. Yusuf turns his head and Nicolò is there, Nicolò’s mouth is there, kissing him, the same devastating combination of gentle and very, very thorough, and Yusuf’s knees give out at that point, leaving him to slump down on Nicolò’s body and feel Nicolò’s hardness against his hip. But Nicolò shows no impatience for his own release, just keeps kissing Yusuf and stroking his back, and it makes Yusuf’s chest ache again, how extraordinarily tender Nicolò is being with him, how much Yusuf wants to make him feel every bit as treasured and cared for.

Yusuf lets himself indulge in being held and kissed for a moment longer, and then, when he has regained some measure of his faculties, he breaks off and props himself up on his hands and knees.

“Now you,” Yusuf says, grinning at Nicolò and gesturing with his chin, “Up.”

Nicolò obligingly scoots up the bank and they both snicker a little at the squelch of the mud under his body.

“There, good,” Yusuf adds, when Nicolò has moved far enough for his groin to be well clear of the water, and then Yusuf slides down to meet Nicolò’s cock.

He has seen and touched it before but this is the first time he has really properly looked, and he does look, appreciating the deep pink colour, the slight curve, the ridges of the foreskin where it is drawn back below the head. Though most of the men Yusuf has been with in the past were circumcised, the sailor he spent a pleasant few evenings with in Rhodes was a Christian and he has seen plenty of them naked in bathhouses, so the foreskin itself is a bit of a novelty but not entirely unfamiliar. Yusuf glances up and sees Nicolò watching him, a hint of uncertainty around his mouth, so Yusuf grins again and says,

“You are beautiful, Nicolò, truly. Every part of you.”

And then, to punctuate his point, Yusuf settles in, wraps a hand around the base of Nicolò’s cock, and presses his lips to the tip. Nicolò breathes in sharply, hands darting out to grasp at the reeds again like he needs them to anchor him. Yusuf starts off slow, mouthing along the shaft, tonguing at the head, using his hand more to steady than to stimulate, not exactly teasing but not doing much more yet either. Not that Nicolò seems to mind at all; when Yusuf glances up again, he finds Nicolò flushed and panting, eyes closed, clutching desperately at the reeds.

This is one of the things Yusuf has imagined many times, looking at Nicolò in the night, thinking about how it would be to have his mouth on him here, and he wants to savour it, drink in the sounds Nicolò makes and the way he feels against Yusuf’s lips and tongue. It occurs to Yusuf then that he is approaching this as though it is the only time he will be able to do it, a single opportunity that he must take full advantage of because there will not be another. But this is not a fleeting tryst in a port with some handsome stranger he will probably never see again, and for all that having Nicolò in his arms feels like a dream, he is not actually going to dissolve into the ether when Yusuf opens his eyes. This may be the first time, but there is no reason to suppose it is not the first of many. With that realisation, Yusuf presses another kiss to the tip of Nicolò’s cock, and then parts his lips and sinks down, taking it properly into his mouth.

Nicolò does not actually thrust up but Yusuf can feel how he wants to, feel the tension in his body as he forces himself to stay down while Yusuf sucks him. Yusuf pats him appreciatively and then shifts a little, letting a bit more of his weight rest against Nicolò’s hips, giving him more resistance so he does not have to work as hard to keep still. One of Nicolò’s hands is on Yusuf’s hair again, moving restlessly, too uncoordinated to be a real caress which only makes it better because thoroughly preoccupied by his pleasure is exactly how Yusuf wants him. He means to map out what Nicolò likes best but it is like trying to chart the open sea: wave after delightful wave, everywhere he looks. Nicolò swears – probably, Yusuf does not know the words but he knows the intonation – when Yusuf takes him to the back of his throat, and tears his handful of reeds out of the ground when Yusuf hollows his cheeks, and trembles under him when Yusuf uses his lips around the head, and after a while Yusuf gives up searching for a preference and just moves as the whim takes him, revelling in every sign of Nicolò’s enjoyment.

“Yusuf,” Nicolò gasps out abruptly, followed by something in Genoese that is probably a warning, and when Yusuf makes no move to pull off, he gets another almost panicked-sounding “ _Yusuf!_ ” and some urgent tugging at his hair. One day, Yusuf decides, one day he will take his time and get Nicolò so worked up that he forgets not only his Latin but his manners too. Yusuf looks up, meets Nicolò’s frantic eyes, acknowledging that he understands and intends to stay right where he is, and then very deliberately swallows Nicolò’s cock as deeply as he can and holds there while Nicolò moans helplessly and spills down his throat.

Yusuf keeps him in his mouth until he sags, spent, and then gently releases him. Yusuf starts to slide down to rinse his mouth in the river, because he wants to kiss Nicolò again and judging by his reaction a moment ago, he will not be used to tasting himself on another’s tongue, but Nicolò grabs at his shoulders, and Yusuf cannot resist the earnest plea in his eyes for a moment. So he lets himself be drawn up instead, meets Nicolò’s lips and smiles into the kiss when he feels Nicolò start a little at the taste and then groan low in his throat and lick deeper into Yusuf’s mouth, chasing it.

“I could kiss you forever,” Yusuf says when they break for air, and Nicolò gives him that sly little smile and says,

“I would rather kiss you than do _almost_ anything else, but I fear I could not be content with kissing alone, not now that I have had more of you. You have spoiled me utterly.”

“There is nothing _spoiled_ about you, you are delicious,” Yusuf insists, and Nicolò laughs, and Yusuf kisses him again.

They kiss a while longer, and then swim a bit more, then wash out their clothes so they can dry in the afternoon heat and then, because it is still too hot to do anything else, go back into the river, settling down in a spot where they can sit comfortably with the water at waist height.

“I am glad we found this place today, and not before,” Nicolò says. “To see you like this, naked and so happy, and not – I do not know how I would have managed.”

“I would not be anywhere near so happy if I were still trying to pretend not to want you,” Yusuf says. “Much better, not having to hide.”

He says it lightly, thinking only of hiding his own lust, but Nicolò’s mouth twists in that wistful way of his and Yusuf is suddenly reminded of all the things he does not say.

“It is better not to hide,” Nicolò agrees. “Yusuf, I - you asked me, before, why I become a priest. The reason I gave you then was … not the real reason.”

“I guessed as much,” Yusuf admits. “Will you tell me now? You do not have to, if you do not want to-”

“I want to,” Nicolò says. “It was because of a girl, Giulia, and a boy, Enzo. Giulia’s mother was my mother’s best friend, and Giulia was mine. We grew up together, and when we were old enough, our parents wanted us to marry. She and I loved one another very much, but it was a love of brother and sister, not husband and wife. There was someone else she wanted for a husband, but her family thought me the better match.”

“Enzo?” Yusuf asks.

“No. Enzo was one of my father’s apprentices. He was sweet, and gentle, and he was the first person I ever kissed. Well. The first person I _really_ kissed. Giulia and I got it into our heads to practice together once, when we were perhaps ten years old. That was as passionate and dignified as you might imagine,” Nicolò says, grinning, and Yusuf grins with him, picturing the scrunched-up expression of distaste he pulls sometimes on a smaller, younger Nicolò’s face.

“Anyway,” Nicolò continues, the grin fading. “My mother caught me with Enzo, one day, and she gave me a choice. Marry Giulia, or go into the church, or she would tell my father what she saw and let him decide. I do not know what he would have done to me, but Enzo would certainly have lost his apprenticeship if not worse. I had been thinking about the church anyway – I had no skill for my father’s trade, as I told you, it was settled already that one of my cousins would inherit the smithy – and I did like the idea of doing God’s work. So the church was the best choice for all of us.”

Little wonder, that Nicolò evaded this topic before. He could have lied, Yusuf thinks, could have told only the part about Giulia and claimed that he went into the church solely to free her to marry the man she wanted. He would have believed that, but he is glad now that Nicolò chose to avoid this story rather than lying to him.

“Or so I thought at that time, at least,” Nicolò adds.

“You regret it now?” Yusuf asks.

Nicolò sighs, taking on that familiar haunted look, and Yusuf reaches for his hand, pressing softly.

“Giulia married Oberto as she wanted, and they were happy,” Nicolò says, “but they had scarcely more than a year to enjoy it before she died. In childbirth, along with her baby. If I had married her instead, and we had lived together as friends, she would not have been nearly so happy as she was with him, but…”

“Nicolò, you could not have known.”

“No, but I still wonder. What would she have chosen, if _she_ had known? I thought it was our fault, for a long time. That her death was our punishment from God because the way we loved one another was not the correct sort of love, because we both lusted for the wrong people.” He sighs again, and Yusuf resists the urge to jump in and tell him his love could never be wrong, instead waits and lets him gather his thoughts.

“I no longer believe that,” Nicolò says after a moment, and Yusuf breathes out, relieved. “Giulia never would have believed it. She knew about Enzo, and she wanted us to be happy as much as I wanted her happy with Oberto. It is another reason I do not wish to go back to live in Genoa. It was never the same, after she was gone. The places we knew together feel too empty without her. Perhaps one day I will be able to walk those streets again and feel her absence as an old scar instead of an open wound, but not yet.”

Yusuf squeezes Nicolò’s hand again, and Nicolò returns the pressure, and even after everything else they have done in the last day, this way of touching still warms Yusuf’s heart.

“And Enzo?” Yusuf asks, because Nicolò looks like he has more to say, and Yusuf needs to know. “Do you still…?”

Nicolò shakes his head firmly.

“No, no, that ended as my mother wished, if not exactly in the way she intended. We quarrelled, when I told him my decision about the church. He said we should run away together, that he did not care about the apprenticeship, but I knew he did not mean it. He loved his craft so much, and he had worked so hard, he could never have been content to abandon it. I said no, and I could see he was relieved, but we argued anyway. I think he was angry with himself for being glad that I did not say yes, and I was angry with him for suggesting it at all when he wanted me to turn him down. So we did not part on the best terms. I went away to the monastery to train, and he stayed with my father and completed his apprenticeship. He married after a few years. They have a daughter now, and she and his wife are well, or at least they were the last time I saw them. We did reconcile, eventually. He made my sword, when I decided to join the war.”

Yusuf thinks of the blade Nicolò abandoned when they first began to talk.

“The one you left…?”

Nicolò shakes his head again.

“No. I lost Enzo’s sword the first time I died. Someone must have taken it before I was resurrected. I got the other from a man who made it back to our camp after the fighting but died of his wounds there.”

He goes quiet then, in the mournful way he often does when thinking of his former comrades or their mission. His face is a mosaic of guilt and shame but there is loss there, too, not only the loss of Giulia and Enzo. Yusuf understands; his broken faith in the invaders’ cause does not change the fact that the men he lived with and fought beside for all that time were brothers in arms and friends. Yusuf strokes his thumb over the back of Nicolò’s hand, gentle.

“Enzo’s was better work,” Nicolò says after a moment. “I hope it was one of yours who took it, that it might be turned to better service than I ever gave it.”

“Many of the local rulers’ wars are not all that much better,” Yusuf points out. Every once in a while Nicolò says things like this, as though he has traded his old belief that the people of the holy land were all evil demons for a new assumption that they are all perfect angels, and though the latter misconception is certainly less damaging than the former, Yusuf still feels the need to remind him that the people are, in fact, just people. Nicolò looks sceptical.

“I mean it, Nicolò,” Yusuf says. “Do you know that the Fatimid soldiers who defend Jerusalem now attacked it themselves only last year, to take it from the Seljuks? There was pointless bloodshed here long before your people arrived and I do not doubt that there will be more again after they leave. Better to hope that the man who took that sword will use it to protect the innocent people caught in the middle, no matter his allegiance.”

Nicolò nods, and brings Yusuf’s hand to his mouth to kiss it. “You are right, that is a better hope.”

They sit together quietly for a few minutes, until something else occurs to Yusuf. He has heard the name Oberto before in some of Nicolò’s stories, but never Enzo or Giulia, though he imagines they must both be among the unnamed friends he has referred to. They must be at the centre of that hidden tapestry, the thing in Nicolò’s past that he always avoided but could not quite leave out entirely. It would make sense, that he was afraid to reveal what Enzo was to him, and afraid to talk in detail about either of them lest he give too much away.

“You never mentioned Enzo or Giulia before,” Yusuf says. “Or did you?”

Nicolò glances at him, looking a little surprised, but a little touched too, as though he did not expect Yusuf to have noticed but is pleased now that he did. 

“The wager, about the olives?” Nicolò says, and Yusuf nods, remembering. “I lied when I said I did not remember the forfeit. The friend – that was Enzo. The deal was that the loser would…” he hesitates, not out of reluctance this time, but struggling for the words. “What you did. Use his mouth. On the winner’s…”

Yusuf gestures to his groin, and Nicolò nods.

“I cannot remember the Latin word for that act either,” Yusuf tells him. “I do remember that the Roman authors spoke very negatively of those who did it. But they spoke of it negatively so often, and in such vivid detail, that one began to wonder just why such a ‘distasteful’ thing was so much on their minds.”

Nicolò snickers.

“It was certainly on the minds of the boys in our neighbourhood. Someone had a brother who visited a… house of…” he frowns in frustration, stuck again.

“Brothel?” Yusuf suggests, and Nicolò nods.

“Brothel, yes, thank you, and had it done, or said he did at least. He spoke of nothing else for weeks. Neither of us had done it before, and we could not decide who should try first. Then we got into a disagreement over whether raw olives could really be so bad, I thought people were just exaggerating so children would not be tempted to steal from their trees, and so…” 

Yusuf cannot help but picture it, a young Nicolò on his knees in some quiet dark corner – that nook he mentioned behind his father’s forge, perhaps – probably nervous but eager too, hitching up the other lad’s tunic, undoing whatever he wore underneath…

“How did you find it?” Yusuf asks, imagination eagerly slotting himself into the place of Nicolò’s friend, though he almost regrets it when another tide of sadness washes over Nicolò’s face.

“Brief but life-changing. That was how my mother caught us. I had only just started, but there was no mistaking what we were up to.”

Yusuf cringes in sympathy; he had assumed they had only been kissing, or that she had walked in on them tangled together after some other form of intimacy, not interrupted them in the midst of the act itself.

“I am sorry,” Yusuf says. Nicolò shrugs, the melancholy passing as quickly as it came.

“If not then, we would have been caught some other way, I think. We were young and not as careful as we should have been. Better my mother than my father, or one of the other apprentices.”

“Has there been anyone else since, if I may ask?”

“Am so I obviously unpracticed?” Nicolò asks, not like he is offended but like he is genuinely curious.

“No, I did not mean – you were a priest after that, and I know your priests are not supposed to…”

The corner of Nicolò’s mouth twists in amusement. “Our priests are not supposed to do a lot of things. I said I was a priest; I did not say I was a good one. But I suppose I was better at the chastity than some. The last I heard, Cosimo had four children with three different mothers. After Enzo, and Alessandro, I was much more careful with men. A few quick…” he mimes tugging at a cock in lieu of naming the activity, “in dark corners over the years, but there was never anyone I liked enough to dare much more, or more than once. There was a woman, Claudia, for a while. She was a nun, so she _really_ was not supposed to.”

“You fucked a nun?” Yusuf asks, shocked and delighted.

“‘Fucked’?” Nicolò repeats, puzzled. Yusuf says it again a little differently, in case he got the pronunciation wrong, but Nicolò still looks blank, shaking his head, and Yusuf realises the vulgarity is rather unlikely to feature in his scriptures.

“Fornicated with,” Yusuf amends. “How did your Father Francesco put it? ‘The carnal act between husband and wife?’”

Nicolò laughs, understanding dawning.

“Not quite. The expectation of chastity is … taken more seriously, for women in the church. It would have ruined her life, to be found with child, and she did not care for it in the rear entrance, so we never did that, only…” he gestures again, “hands and mouths. Eventually I was sent elsewhere and no longer had opportunity to see her. I always seemed to want the wrong people, until you.”

Yusuf does not bother to point out the many reasons why the pair of them might be considered wrong as well; the look on Nicolò’s face says clearly that he is thinking of those reasons too, and rejects them wholeheartedly. Yusuf kisses his fingertips.

“May I ask you something else?” Yusuf asks.

“You can ask me anything,” Nicolò tells him seriously. “If I seemed to hide before it was only because… you know why, now. And you knew the worst of me before you knew my name. I have no reason and no desire to keep anything else from you.”

“There were other things I wondered about,” Yusuf admits. “Things you would mention, and then go quiet. Those pastries, with the nuts?”

Nicolò smiles this time.

“They were Enzo’s favourite. I learned how to make them so I could make them for him when it was not Easter.”

“And the kittens in the cellar?”

“Was I really so unsubtle?” Nicolò asks, surprised again.

“I wanted – still want – to know everything about you. I paid attention.”

“The cellar was Giulia’s. We looked after them together. It was what gave our mothers the idea that we should marry – they saw how we were with the kittens and thought we would do well as parents.”

Yusuf asks about the other things he remembers prompting Nicolò’s silences, and most of them do turn out to be connected to Enzo or Giulia in some way. Except for the eel pie, which just makes Nicolò groan and hide his face in his hands.

“The eels must have been in the sun at the market too long,” he says. “We all spent two days shitting ourselves. I thought if I did not die of the shitting, then my father was going to kill me for putting him through it. That one was just embarrassing.”

They move out of the water after a while, and continue the conversation sitting in the grass. They will have to do something about food soon, but neither of them wants to get up just yet. Yusuf is full of questions, and Nicolò indulges him for some time, until he finally says,

“Yusuf, I will tell you anything you wish to know, but none of this is as interesting as any of your stories.”

“It is your life, of course it is interesting,” Yusuf objects.

“Enough of my life, for now at least. Who was _your_ first love?”

“I am not sure that I really had one,” Yusuf says, thinking about it. “The first person I kissed was a friend’s sister. It was nice, but it was only that one kiss, never anything more. Most of my other firsts were with Harun at school, and that was much the same – we enjoyed ourselves together but… I was not learning to make pastries for him, you understand?” Nicolò nods, and Yusuf considers further. “I think I could have come to love Ishaq – I have told you about him, have I not?”

“The brilliant one you studied with, who taught you Latin,” Nicolò says. “I did wonder, you seemed especially fond of him.”

“Yes. If he had wanted me, perhaps that could have been… but he had eyes only for books, so we remained as friends. There have been others, a widow in Alexandria called Safiyya, people in other ports we visited whose names I never learned or no longer remember, all pleasant experiences but nothing to inspire poetry, you know? I thought-”

Yusuf hesitates, an unexpected tide of emotion washing over him. And then he thinks of all the other times he has wanted to say something or do something with Nicolò and hesitated, thinking it too much, too fast, too far, only for Nicolò to be bolder and confess the same desire. He keeps telling Nicolò not to hesitate; perhaps it is time to begin taking his own advice.

Nicolò watches him, curious, patient. Yusuf gathers Nicolò’s hand to him, circling his thumb in Nicolò’s palm, and Nicolò cups his other hand around Yusuf’s fingers, pressing gently. Yusuf takes a deep breath, and Nicolò presses his hand a little more firmly, as though sensing that Yusuf needs the reassurance.

“I thought that such love as the poets speak of, love that excites the body and fills the mind, love that makes the heart ache and rejoice in its aching, was not meant for me,” Yusuf says. It is tempting to look down, away, but he forces himself to be brave and meet Nicolò’s gaze. “Until now. Until you, Nicolò of Genoa. Nicolò of my heart.” 

Tears glisten in Nicolò’s eyes and his jaw clenches, not in anger but as if the pressure between his teeth is the only thing keeping him together. Then he opens his mouth, and no words come out. He shuts it again, shakes his head, and drops Yusuf’s hand to gather him into an embrace so close that it seems an affront to nature that they remain two distinct bodies and not one single being.

“I do not know how anyone could have even the smallest measure of your affection and not give you their whole heart,” Nicolò whispers into Yusuf’s ear. “It is the greatest privilege of my life, to be allowed to give you mine.”

“I will treasure it always,” Yusuf promises him. “It is only fair, as you have the entirety of mine.”

* * *

They spend three days in more or less the same place by the river, trading walking for swimming and touching one another almost constantly. It is a good spot for lingering, with abundant edible plants, and they even manage to catch some fish. Or, more accurately, Nicolò catches them, standing so still in the water for so long that they ignore him and come close enough for his hands to shoot out lightning-quick and grab one. They might stay there indefinitely, if not for an unwelcome reminder that they are not, in fact, the only people in existence, or at least in this area.

Yusuf is sitting on a large flat rock near the river, naked and oblivious to their surroundings because Nicolò is kneeling between his legs, mouth wrapped around his cock, cheerfully taking him to pieces. And then the reverie is broken by the unexpected sound of – giggling? Yusuf opens his eyes to the sight of two children, a boy and a girl, both maybe ten years old. They are standing a dozen paces away, staring at him and Nicolò, snickering and whispering to each other. Before Yusuf can bring his mind around enough to react, Nicolò pulls off Yusuf’s cock and looks behind him, which is enough to make the children run off, still tittering. Nicolò turns back and drops his head against Yusuf’s thigh, shoulders shaking. Yusuf, caught somewhere between mortified and mourning the abrupt loss of Nicolò’s mouth, worries that Nicolò might be crying for a moment until he tilts his face up again and Yusuf realises he is in fact laughing.

“Nicolò?” Yusuf asks.

“At least it was not my mother this time,” Nicolò says, impressively unflustered, and takes Yusuf’s cock back into his mouth before Yusuf can think of a single thing to say.

Later, after they are both satisfied, Yusuf seats himself on the ground against the rock, and draws Nicolò in to sit between his legs, back to his chest. Nicolò sinks into his embrace, humming contentedly, then sighs and says, sounding resigned, “We should move on, I suppose. Before they come back, or someone else does.”

“Probably,” Yusuf agrees, nuzzling at Nicolò’s ear. “We could follow the river to the sea, but there will likely be more people along it.”

“We will have to deal with people eventually,” Nicolò says, though he does not sound very enthusiastic about the idea. He takes one of Yusuf’s hands from where they are resting on his waist, and starts playing idly with Yusuf’s fingers. “Do you think we are anywhere near Acre?”

“I have no idea,” Yusuf admits. “I suppose I will have to ask someone.”

The prospect of speaking to human beings who are not Nicolò again feels very strange, and not exactly welcome. Why bother with anyone else when Nicolò is right here? Honestly, the prospect of doing much of anything other than making love with Nicolò, holding him after, playing with him in the water, or taking the occasional obligatory break to sleep or deal with food is not very appealing. Yusuf probably will need something else eventually; hedonism is all well and good for a while but he has never been content in the long term without some sort of goal to aim at, even if it is only a small thing like a translation to finish or a new city to see. But right now, touching Nicolò as much as possible is goal enough.

“Or we could just carry on as we have been,” Yusuf says. “Just … wander. You and me.”

“I will gladly follow you anywhere,” Nicolò says without hesitation. “If that is what you want…”

“What do you want?”

“I want to be with you, and I want you to be happy. I meant it before, Yusuf – I truly do not care, so long as we are together. If you prefer to wander, then let us wander. If you prefer to return to civilization…”

“I would not say that I miss civilization as such. Not when I have you,” Yusuf says, and sighs. He runs the fingers of his free hand along the too-prominent ridges of Nicolò’s ribs. “But I would like to see you better fed. And it will not be summer forever; when you must wear clothes I would like to see you in something better than those rags. Whatever we decide to do after, it would be prudent to go to a city for clothes and supplies, if nothing else. And that will be easier in a place where I know people.”

“We should go to Acre, then,” Nicolò says.

“Yes,” Yusuf agrees. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. What will you tell your merchant friends?” Nicolò asks.

“What do you mean?”

“‘I went to Jerusalem and died many times and ultimately had to run away without my purse because I was kind to one of the enemy – who has a similar habit of failing to stay dead – and they thought I was a traitor. Could I please borrow some money?’” Nicolò recites, and Yusuf laughs.

“Fair point,” Yusuf says. “It will depend on who is there. There are a few people I know well enough to approach in Acre, but I would not call all of them friends. If Zayd is at home, or I can speak to Miriam without her husband, I can tell them a version of the truth, at least. That I had to leave Jerusalem quickly because I was accused of treachery over a misunderstanding, and that I will pay back whatever they loan me as soon as I am able. If it is Ahmad or one of the others who do not like me as much, I probably need to invent something more straightforward. Say I was robbed, perhaps, and put the debt against the family business.”

“What will you tell them about me? Or should I stay out of it?”

Yusuf grins. “If it is Miriam, I will introduce you to her as my lover,” he says, craning his neck to enjoy the expected shock on Nicolò's face. “The reason I need Miriam apart from her husband is that he does not like me because he is convinced his wife would like to bed me, and I think he is not wrong about that. She is lovely and if things were different I probably would have before now, but my family does a good deal of business with them, so to avoid complications I have long aimed to give her the impression that I am interested only in men. So presenting you as my lover would serve us very well indeed.”

“She would not… be bothered by it? Or jealous?”

“She would be rather pleased, I think. She often offers me introductions to handsome acquaintances of hers who are rumoured to share my tastes, and she has always liked a good love story.”

“Is that what we are calling it now?” Nicolò asks, eyes dancing with mirth.

“I shall have to omit the bit about all the times we killed each other, though I do feel it adds a unique zest to the narrative,” Yusuf says.

“And if it is not Miriam?”

“If it is Zayd, I will think of something, he is an understanding sort. If it is Ahmad or one of the others, probably best I speak with them alone. You said you have some little Greek, yes? We should try to improve that, if we are going to deal with people.”

“Mm. You should teach me your languages, too. Arabic and, uh, Tama-?”

“Tamazight. But then how will I confess my secret desires to you while keeping them secret?”

“Use one of the other languages you know that I do not? Or keep no secrets, because I want to know all of your desires.”

“You _are_ all of my desires,” Yusuf says, and kisses him, and then teaches him a few words in Arabic and Tamazight both, though phrases like ‘my heart and soul’ and ‘fuck that was good, do it again’ are probably not the most practical introduction.

* * *

The next morning, they do finally set off, following the river westward towards the sea.

When they spot a man fishing from a little pier, Yusuf gives his sword to Nicolò and goes to talk to him. The oddity of speaking to someone other than Nicolò, in Arabic, is replaced by a queasy blankness after Yusuf mentions that they came from Jerusalem several weeks ago and the man looks at him sadly and says, “You do not know, then?”

Yusuf hears the man out, clarifies their location and directions to Acre, and goes back to Nicolò, feeling all the while as though he has eaten bad shellfish and his ears, mouth, and head have all been stuffed with wool.

“He said we are two days’ travel from Acre. Probably three or four, at our pace,” Yusuf tells Nicolò, aware that his voice sounds strange but unable to do anything about it. Nicolò frowns at him, eyes wide with concern.

“Yusuf, what is wrong?”

“He had news. From Jerusalem.”

Nicolò’s face shutters instantly. “What…?”

“The siege is over,” Yusuf says. “Your people won.”

The part of Yusuf’s mind that has become dedicated exclusively to observing and cataloguing Nicolò’s every whim and expression and gesture notices how he flinches, but in this moment the rest of Yusuf is too numb with his own horror to consider tempering his words.

“They took the city, and they killed the soldiers, but they did not stop at that. They killed the women too, and the children, the old men, the tradesmen, the imams and rabbis. They killed the people seeking sanctuary in the holy places. Everyone they could get their hands on, just about. Rivers of blood in the streets, he said.”

Nicolò staggers, Yusuf’s sword slipping out of his grasp to clatter to the ground, and Yusuf cannot help but think of the last time a sword fell from Nicolò’s hand. The day they stopped fighting.

“I never should have left,” Yusuf says, guilt dropping like a lead weight into his stomach. “The day we – You told me, you _told_ me they were almost finished with the siege towers, I should never have-”

“They thought you were a traitor. Because you were kind to me. You had to-”

“I did not even try. I went there to protect those people, I _died_ trying to protect those people, and then I just… walked away. I was tired and lonely and somehow I decided that was more important than their lives. I walked away and they slaughtered them all-”

“Yusuf,” Nicolò says, his voice like steel cutting through the nauseated fog of Yusuf’s mind. “You could not have stopped them. Not even you could stop an army on your own. This is no fault of yours.”

“I should have-”

“ _You_ are not to blame. You have never been anything but kind and generous. By all means grieve this atrocity, but do not believe for a _moment_ that any responsibility for it lies with you,” Nicolò says, his tone brooking no argument. He looks past Yusuf, at the fisherman, and adds, “We should go. He is staring.”

Nicolò picks up the sword, pushes it into Yusuf’s hands, and drags him by the elbow until he starts moving on his own, still feeling sick and numb in equal measure. Nicolò tows him to the shade of the trees a short distance from the water, then drops his arm and steps back.

Yusuf reaches for him immediately, needing the consolation of his closeness. Nicolò jerks away. Nicolò has never avoided his touch before, not once since they laid down their weapons, and the rejection slices through Yusuf as a pain worse than any of the wounds he received on the battlefield.

“Do not touch me,” Nicolò says, eyes closed, jaw clenched, sounding as tormented as Yusuf feels.

“Why not?” Yusuf asks, plaintive as a child and too miserable to be ashamed of it. Nicolò cringes as though struck and retreats a few steps further before opening his eyes.

“Because I know no greater pleasure than your hands on me,” Nicolò says, “and I do not deserve that pleasure. I do not deserve _you_. I never did. It was nothing but a selfish delusion to imagine I ever could.”

“Nicolò,” Yusuf says, jolted from his own stupor by the agony in Nicolò’s voice. “If you tell me I cannot blame myself for leaving, then you cannot blame yourself for – what? You were not there. You had no part in what they did after we left.”

“I could have. I had my part in everything they – we – did before I left. If I had survived in the normal way, if I had not found you – I had my doubts before but I cannot say with any certainty that I would have walked away before the end if things had been different. I was one of them. _I_ should have stayed, after I recognised how wrong we were. I should have made them understand. Or I should have burnt those towers myself, I-”

“Do you really think anyone would have listened to you?” Yusuf interrupts. “Or let you get anywhere near the towers with a torch? Leaving was the best thing you could have done.”

“I should have tried. They kept talking about ‘cleansing’ the holy city, I should have done _something_ -”

Yusuf grasps Nicolò’s shoulder and he shies away from the contact again, and knowing why he thinks he has to do it does nothing to soften the blow.

“If you believe you must punish yourself, must you do it in a way that punishes me too?” Yusuf asks him, and that makes him freeze and meet Yusuf’s gaze. Perhaps it is unfair, to frame it thus, but Yusuf cannot bring himself to care when there is nothing he needs more than for his love to stop pulling away from him.

“What?” Nicolò asks.

“I know no greater comfort than your embrace. Will you deny me that, now, of all times?”

Nicolò makes a sound like a wounded animal and maybe Yusuf will feel guilty for that too, later, but in the moment he feels nothing but relief as Nicolò takes him into his arms.

“Forgive me,” Nicolò says, and whether he is speaking to Yusuf or his god or all the people they both failed to save, it does not matter.

* * *

They speak little for the rest of the day. Nicolò stops evading Yusuf’s touch, even takes his hand and holds it while they walk, but the guilt and sorrow they both feel, and the impotent frustration of being unable to console each other or convince the other that he is not to blame, hang like a heavy veil between them. Yusuf hates all of it. War is war, he knows that, the deaths of soldiers are to a point expected though he hates it all the same, but such a wholesale slaughter of civilians…

He hates that the invaders won, hates what they did in their victory, hates the invaders themselves – except, of course, Nicolò. If the invaders had never come, Yusuf would most likely never have met Nicolò. But even one death is too high a price for his happiness, never mind thousands. He feels like a hypocrite, cursing the invasion with one breath while singing the praises of the man it brought to him with the other. And then he thinks of Nicolò talking about Giulia, _What would she have chosen, if she had known?_ If some angel or djinn were to appear to him now and say, _All those people can have their lives back, or you can have him_ , would he even have the strength to make the right choice?

Of course, that choice is not available to him, even if he could make the right one. There is absolutely nothing he can do about what has already happened. He hates how useless the knowledge of it makes him feel; what is the point of their strange invulnerability when it helps no one else?

He hates how it makes Nicolò shrink in on himself and go distant, emotionally if no longer physically. He seems small, now, small and far away and withered by his penitence, in a way that has nothing to do with his bodily presence. Yusuf hates, too, how learning of these things has shattered the bliss he and Nicolò shared for the last several days, and then hates himself even more for lamenting something so trivial as the end of their joyful idyll when countless innocent people have been brutally murdered.

Yusuf has not thought much of the people he left behind in Jerusalem until now; he had already felt so removed from them all after his first death that the physical distance between them and him since his departure from the city barely mattered. But he thinks of them now. The other volunteers who came with him from Acre are dead. Everyone he fought beside in Jerusalem is dead. The people who worked in the army’s kitchens and laundry, the craftsmen who mended weapons and equipment, the men and women and children who he passed in the streets of the city, all are dead. The men with the carts who came out to collect the bodies after battles, from whom he got the water skin that he gave to Nicolò that first day, are dead. Was there even anyone left to collect the bodies, anyone left to wash and prepare and bury them? Or did the invaders leave them where they fell, to stink and fester in the sun?

The nausea overwhelms Yusuf then and he has to stop to vomit. Nicolò says nothing, just rubs his back and hands him the water skin when he finishes. What exactly Nicolò is thinking of, Yusuf cannot guess and does not ask; the misery radiating off him is palpable enough and Yusuf has no comfort beyond the touch of their hands to offer, if Nicolò would even accept it.

After they stop for the day, Nicolò catches a fish for their meal. He cuts his hand while cleaning it and it is obviously an accident borne of distraction, but the way he stares at the blood welling up before the wound closes stokes a fresh spark of anxiety in Yusuf’s gut. Yusuf starts the fire himself while Nicolò is still working on the fish, though Nicolò is better with the flint, in part because the strike of flint on stone is cathartic and in part because he does not want Nicolò near the flames. Nicolò barely touches his portion of the fish before he passes it to Yusuf, claiming not to be hungry, and Yusuf has little appetite himself but this worries him too all the same. When they settle in for the night, fear – perhaps irrational, perhaps not – seizes Yusuf and he says,

“Nicolò. Promise me that you will not – not do anything foolish. Promise that you will still be here with me when I wake up.”

“Of course,” Nicolò says immediately, with a certainty that is at least a little reassuring, as is the fact that he sounds surprised rather than caught out. “I would not – the last thing I want is to cause any more pain. To anyone, but especially to you. Yusuf, I would never leave you, not unless you asked me to go.”

“I will never ask that,” Yusuf says.

Nicolò nods, and says, apologetic,

“I am sorry, I know I have not been good company today.”

“Neither have I. It has not been a good day.”

“No. But tomorrow is another day. Try to sleep, now.”

Nicolò spreads his legs, offering his lap, and Yusuf lays down without argument, resting his head against Nicolò’s thigh.

“Just tell me, if you would prefer quiet,” Nicolò says. He starts singing, softly, and Yusuf is not in the mood to put much effort into understanding the lyrics, but this melody is not one he has heard before. Two of the words that he does recognise are ‘mother’ and ‘tears’, and he is quite sure that this is no cheerful tune about a mother weeping on her daughter’s wedding day. It is unlikely to be a lullaby either, but Nicolò’s voice and his nearness help soothe Yusuf to sleep anyway.

* * *

As promised, Nicolò is still there when Yusuf wakes, his thigh under Yusuf’s head and his hand on Yusuf’s chest, over his heart. Yusuf grasps and squeezes it before sitting up.

“Your turn,” Yusuf says, though tonight he very much does not relish the prospect of the next several hours alone with his thoughts.

“Could we talk, first?” Nicolò asks, and even in the darkness he must see something in Yusuf’s face because he adds quickly, “Do not worry, it is not – I do not believe it is anything to worry about.”

“Go on, then,” Yusuf says. 

“I have been thinking about what you said,” Nicolò tells him. “When we talked about Enzo’s sword. How there will probably always be needless violence, and not only here.”

Yusuf frowns, unable to guess where Nicolò could be going with this, but he does not interrupt.

“Even fighting together, I do not think we could stop entire armies,” Nicolò continues. “But we can do things, survive things, that most people cannot. Much as I would wish to, I cannot undo the harm I have already caused in my life, but I would like to use this new life I have been given to put something better into the world. We can help people, some people at least, who are more vulnerable than we are. Whatever we each believe about whether we were wrong to walk away from Jerusalem, could we agree that in the future, if we can help someone, we will not walk away?”

Yusuf stares at him, awed that this is what the day’s despair has led him to. Leave it to Nicolò to find purpose in their grief, a path out of this helpless despondency. Yusuf knows he should say something but finds himself too overwhelmed with love for the man before him to speak.

“Yusuf?” Nicolò asks, tentative. “I am sorry, you have no-”

Yusuf grabs his hand and kisses it.

“Yes,” Yusuf says, and kisses his wrist too. “Of course, Nicolò, yes, yes, yes.” With each assertion he lays another kiss higher up Nicolò’s arm, chasing the hint of a smile beginning to form at the corner of his mouth, tugging him closer, and then finally Nicolò shifts so Yusuf can straddle his legs and kiss his lips.

“How is it that all these terrible things have brought me to something as wonderful as you?” Yusuf asks, and Nicolò ducks his head shyly, and then turns back to bring their lips together again. The kiss starts sweet and quickly turns a little desperate, both of them seeking solace in the other in a way they felt unable to do earlier.

”When I died and did not stay dead,” Yusuf says when they break off to catch their breaths, “I thought I was being denied paradise, and instead I have found it in you.”

“I do not understand how it can be that some of my worst mistakes set me on the road to the best thing I could imagine,” Nicolò says, and then he yawns, so big and wide that his jaw cracks before he clamps a hand over his mouth, looking embarrassed. Yusuf presses a kiss to the back of that hand and another to his forehead, reminded that he has not slept yet.

“You should rest now, Nicolò, my heart and soul,” Yusuf says. “We can speak further in the morning.”

Nicolò nods and lets Yusuf manoeuvre them so that Nicolò is draped across Yusuf’s lap, curled in against his chest. Yusuf’s leg is probably going to cramp like this but he does not care, cares only about having Nicolò as close as possible. Nicolò takes Yusuf’s hand and clutches it in both of his, and Yusuf feels a small measure of the bone-deep contentment that was torn away by the news of Jerusalem this morning return to him. The sorrow is not gone, will likely not fade for a long time, but it is not quite so overwhelming now, with Nicolò in his arms and a sense of purpose for their future.

“Yusuf?” Nicolò asks, when Yusuf thought he was almost asleep.

“Hmm?”

“How do you say ‘I love you’ in your languages?”

Yusuf tells him, in Tamazight and Arabic, and Nicolò repeats both phrases back to him. He stumbles a little over the unfamiliar sounds but it still makes Yusuf’s heart stutter in a way he did not expect, to hear these words from Nicolò not in stiff academic Latin but in the languages of home, even if he does not really think of it as home any longer.

“How do you say it in Genoese?” Yusuf asks; he has an inkling from the folk songs but does not want to guess and risk getting it wrong. Nicolò tells him, and Yusuf repeats those words too, and Nicolò does not say anything else but the way he sighs and squeezes Yusuf’s hand says enough.

Yusuf spends the rest of the night planning and contemplating where and how two men with their skills who cannot die might be of use. It is, admittedly, not quite as mindlessly enjoyable as the besotted contemplation of Nicolò’s eyelashes and planning of ways to make him writhe in pleasure that have occupied Yusuf for the last several nights, but there is a certain satisfaction in turning his thoughts to something a little less hedonistic, to having a more meaningful goal in mind.

When Nicolò stirs, Yusuf says, “Good morning,” in Latin and “I love you,” in Genoese.

And Nicolò says “Good morning,” in Latin and “I love you,” first in Tamazight and then in Arabic, and then sits up and turns around to kiss Yusuf. The kiss is sweet and tender with an edge of need, and Yusuf thinks, well, his plans for their future usefulness will still be there after he tends to the hard length of Nicolò’s cock jutting against his hip.

If this is to be Yusuf’s life from now on, he thinks, as Nicolò trails kisses down his neck, then he is more blessed than he could ever have hoped.


End file.
